What's a good hex editor/viewer for the Mac? [closed]

Asked 5/5, 2009 at 23:5 Answered 19/4, 2012 at 21:57

201

What's a good hex editor/viewer for the Mac? I've used xxd for viewing hexdumps, and I think it can be used in reverse to make edits. But what I really want is a real hex editor.

Litha answered 5/5, 2009 at 23:5 Comment(0)

396

To view the file, run:

xxd filename | less

To use Vim as a hex editor:

Open the file in Vim.
Run :%!xxd (transform buffer to hex)
Edit.
Run :%!xxd -r (reverse transformation)
Save.

Bullis answered 5/5, 2009 at 23:22 Comment(8)

There also vinarise.vim plugin which makes hex editing workflow nicer. – Spirograph 6/1, 2015 at 23:23

This is exactly why I ask candidates "teach me something I don't know about vim" in every interview. After 15 years I'm still find GOLD. – Ensample 6/1, 2016 at 1:33

If you understand what :% ! does, then you will realize this is equivalent to doing cat filename.bin | xxd. So really this is more of a "did you know that you have an xxd command?" answer. Now that I look into it, I find that xxd also accepts a filename. So, if you only need to see the content of the binary/hex file, you can just use xxd filename.bin. Good stuff! – Ensample 6/1, 2016 at 1:37

The problem with using xxd (and with using vim as described in this answer) is that there's no highlighting of the char and binary value. You'll need to count more characters and remember more positions to use this "dumb" binary dump effectively. Also, there's no intelligent analysis of endianness or interpretation of byte ranges as different types. – Annoy 17/11, 2016 at 4:2

@BrunoBronosky Or xxd filename.bin | less when it doesn't fit in one screen height. – Pattypatulous 22/11, 2016 at 5:0

@Derek朕會功夫 and reset when you forget to pipe to less and your terminal is hosed from the control characters. ;-) – Ensample 22/11, 2016 at 5:27

when i did this vim added a trailing newline, i did set :binary and :set noeol – Burp 12/3, 2017 at 21:11

I found that in the situation the file is with all "0x00", xxd is not working: % xxd file1 xxd: Operation timed out % xxd --version xxd 2022-01-14 by Juergen Weigert et al. % echo $SHELL /bin/zsh It's MacOS Monterey 12.4. The problem is you don't know that (all "0x00" situation) if xxd doesn't work. – Falkner 1/11, 2022 at 20:24

130

Open file with Xcode and press Command + Shift + J
Right click file name in left pane
Open as -> Hex

Unipersonal answered 19/4, 2012 at 21:57 Comment(4)

@ahcox this totally still works with Xcode 9 – Bantam 12/6, 2017 at 18:48

@ahcox perhaps you tried to open a folder, because then you will get that error. – Pashm 2/10, 2017 at 2:54

Is there a command line option to open a file in Xcode directly into Hex mode? – Vi 7/12, 2017 at 16:31

works in Xcode 12.4. The editor's behavior might be a bit surprising, but just keep typing... – Breazeale 26/5, 2021 at 19:40

One recommendation I've gotten is Hex Fiend.

Litha answered 5/5, 2009 at 23:7 Comment(3)

Yea, and you can read the developer talking about fun implementing stuff on it here ridiculousfish.com/blog – Collard 6/5, 2009 at 0:50

Also like Hex Fiend. The project moved to GitHub - so download the latest version on the releases tab instead of their previous website - github.com/ridiculousfish/HexFiend/releases – Cain 18/3, 2016 at 18:48

It's also available on Homebrew: brew cask install hex-fiend – Rozellarozelle 16/7, 2018 at 18:25

I have recently started using 0xED, and like it a lot.

Orchestrate answered 5/5, 2009 at 23:8 Comment(5)

@JarretHardie HexFriend does not support dragging I suppose? – Briquette 18/1, 2015 at 7:50

0xED seems to be the most simple and user-friendly of the free options out there. Just download and run, and get a side-by-side hex/ASCII view. Text editors work too, but often don't have very good binary-level editing/display options. Plus 0xED is incredibly fast; you can browse in realtime through a 1 GB file. – Pleinair 29/9, 2018 at 16:51

0xED doesn't work at all for me (it doesn't even show a UI). macOS Mojave. I also find it fishy that there's no checksum posted on the site for the latest version. – Electron 23/9, 2019 at 5:51

According to the official site, 0xED is no longer under active development – Emaciation 2/3, 2020 at 16:29

At some point in the last year the official website went offline (domain renewed in May 21). You can still find the last release in archive.org's wayback machine. However this project isn't open source and as the developer/site is gone...so you are probably better off adopting a different tool (xxd, hexfiend, xcode, etc). – Residue 26/11, 2021 at 13:1

There are probably better options, but I use and kind of like TextWrangler for basic hex editing. File -> hex Dump File

Rauch answered 5/5, 2009 at 23:10 Comment(5)

TextWrangler has been sunsetted/discontinued as of macOS 10.13 (High Sierra). – Sabadell 3/3, 2018 at 0:43

BBEdit is the "replacement" for TextWrangler, looks and feels the same and offers the same features as TextWrangler, and still free. You only pay to support the developer and/or unlock more advanced features. barebones.com/products/textwrangler – Threecolor 30/5, 2018 at 14:14

This is exactly the same for the latest version of BBedit – Hurff 29/6, 2018 at 16:33

Unfortunately, while BBEdit's free version is essentially the same, it has some notable differences from TW, especially the addition of nag stuff (menu items labeled "Pro" or whatever). TextWrangler still works well if you can grab a download. – Pleinair 29/9, 2018 at 16:54

Can you edit hex in TextWrangler/BBEdit? I have only find a way to hexdump and read, not edit and save back to file. – Milburr 3/5, 2023 at 21:28

The one that I like is HexEdit Quick and easy to use

Lamartine answered 6/5, 2009 at 0:22 Comment(2)

How do you compile it? Its Makefile seems corrupted, and even trying to fix it manually didn't seem to work. Can you post a correct Makefile for it? – Heterochromous 29/6, 2017 at 14:51

Even if this source binary was ok, I trust nothing on Sourceforge. – Entanglement 12/3, 2018 at 10:45

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