Tell me more ×
Ask Different is a question and answer site for power users of Apple hardware and software. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 13 down vote favorite
3

What are your recommendation for opening large text files on OS X? I found both BBEdit and Textmate to be struggling in this department.

share|improve this question
1  
there's a dup of this on stackoverflow: stackoverflow.com/questions/952886/… – Robert S Ciaccio Oct 25 '10 at 18:58
(That SO question should probably be moved to Super User or here :) – Jonik Oct 26 '10 at 17:15
How big is the file you are trying to load? Textmate is terrible with large files, especially files with long lines. I've never had any problem with BBedit opening 10s of Mbyte files. – Henry Oct 26 '10 at 22:20
1  
The 64bit version of Emacs should also be pretty good when opening such big files. – Gio Jan 16 '12 at 10:46
Define "large". Usually it becomes interesting when the files does not fit in available memory. – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen Apr 24 at 11:35

6 Answers

up vote 11 down vote

I found MacVim pretty good at opening large files.

There's even a plugin to speed it up, if the file is really large.

EDIT: it seems the project moved to GitHub.

share|improve this answer
1  
The command-line version vim is already available in Terminal.app. – mouviciel Oct 24 '10 at 19:46
True, but since he talked about BBEdit and Textmate, I assumed he wanted graphical application and not in command-line. – Loïc Wolff Oct 24 '10 at 19:54
vim helped me edit a 512MB+ text file. I wish there was something like EM Editor (emeditor.com) for Mac. – fnurl Mar 21 '11 at 19:40
up vote 4 down vote

BBEdit is pretty much the standard for opening large text files on a Mac. I've opened some good-sized files with it, and BBEdit didn't even break a sweat.

How large of a file are you talking about? And how much RAM does your Mac have (both installed and free)?

Edited to add…

Bare Bones released BBEdit 9.6 today, and according to the Release Notes1 (under Changes):

It is now possible to open files significantly larger than before; the ceiling isn't unlimited, but it is no longer limited by the previously extant constraints in the OS.

Sounds to me like it's worth upgrading (free for anyone with BBEdit 9.x) and trying again.

1 If you've never read a Bare Bones release notice before, you should. Even if you have no interest in BBEdit. Even if you have no interest in Bare Bones. Even if you have no interest in text editors in general. They're that good. Yes, really. Iä! Iä! Pnoies fhtagn!

share|improve this answer
+1 for recommending BBEdit and "Iä! Iä! Pnoies fhtagn!". My favorite so far is "The ponies' saronite shoes have been reinforced with titanium, and have a buff applied which increases both ground and flight speed by 30%." – Philip Regan Oct 26 '10 at 22:48
I reviewed a previous version of BBEdit for Macworld, and was sorely disappointed that I wasn't allowed to put "No actual ponies" under the Cons section. – Dori Oct 26 '10 at 22:50
up vote 2 down vote

TextWrangler is a great tool for opening editing and saving large files. I wouldn't recommend if for copying and pasting large amounts of content though. Use it if you don't want to have to deal with the vi interface/commands. Like Loic mentioned, MacVim is a great app if you're more familar with vi.

share|improve this answer
Given that TextWrangler is BBEdit's little brother, I'd guess that someone who is already using BBEdit won't find anything new there. – Dori Oct 26 '10 at 21:38
up vote 2 down vote

I'm using HexFiend to work with a 60 GB text file and it works great (apparently it can handle files as large as 118 GB).

share|improve this answer
up vote 1 down vote

If you are reading the file only, use the 'less' command. You can navigate and search through the file like vi, but much faster and without the nasty 'line too long' type problems. For working with big production logs, this is an invaluable tool.

share|improve this answer
There is also view for a read-only vi session. – lhf Dec 13 '12 at 11:47
@lhf less works on a window of the file, vi reads in the whole file in memory. – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen Apr 24 at 11:37
up vote 1 down vote

Check Sublime Text 2 out. It is one of the best out there.

share|improve this answer
And Sublime Text 3 more faster then previous version. – Vetal4eg Apr 24 at 9:11

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.