Hoo WinTail is a real-time log monitor and log viewer for Windows like the UNIX tail -f utility. It could be used to view the end of a growing file. It is ideal for viewing application traces or server log in real-time. You can view the last part of a large file quickly without the need to load the entire file. Hoo WinTail could capture and display OutputDebugString (Windows debugging API) output as well.

Hoo WinTail has many excellent features for debugging program and system administration: highlight filters, include and exclude filters, regular expression for filters, monitor multiple log files, bookmarks support, minimize to systray and flash systray icon to indicate new lines written and so on.

Hoo WinTail is a file viewer only. It makes no changes to log files. It opens log files in read-only mode. When new lines are written to log file by other programs (e.g. your applications or web server), Hoo WinTail reads the new lines and displays them.

Hoo WinTail has an attractive and intuitive MDI and tabbed interface. You could monitor and view multiple log files and capture OutputDebugString output at the same time.

Top 10 Benefits of Hoo WinTail

Monitor your application log, IIS log, Exchange Server log, FTP Server log, and so on

Hoo WinTail monitors log files and displays the last part of them. It supports all kinds of log files. You also can monitor multiple log files at the same time.

Capture and display OutputDebugString output

It's very useful for debugging program. OutputDebugString is a Windows debugging API. You can call it in all kinds of programming languages (VC/VB/C++ Builder/Delphi).

Highlight phrase with text color and background color

Let you easy to see some phrases you concern. You could enter a regular expression and then highlight it. It's possible to show different text instead the match phrase.

Send notification emails for specific highlight phrases occurrence

This feature is very valuable for administrators and security personnel. Administrators can watch for known problem "phrases" in various log files and notify the support personnel if they occur. Security personnel can watch for known issues in various log files (e.g. firewall log) and notify the proper people if suspicious activity is noted.

Write the line that includes designated highlight phrase to a specified file

If you want to monitor a server log to extract the information that was generated by a specific IP address you can just set that IP address up as a "watch phrase" and all activity for that IP address would be extracted to the specified file.

Include and exclude filters

It's very useful to filter content that you don't want to see. The regular expression is supported.

Send a notification email if a file stops updating

If your applications write to log files regularly, the software will notify you by email if a log is no longer being written on.

Open a batch of files on one click

Hoo WinTail supports file sets. The feature allows user to open a batch files just one one click.

Easy to see new log data generated

Hoo WinTail will draw a red line to separate new text lines from old text lines when new data was captured and document is inactive or Hoo WinTail loses focus.

DOS, UNIX and Unicode format log support

If you have these format logs you can monitor them using Hoo WinTail conveniently.

Hoo WinTail Key Features

Monitor log files and display the last part of them in real-time
Capture and display OutputDebugString output in real-time
Tabbed Interface
Highlight filters support
Save document as a HTML file with highlight color
Show highlight filter as different text
Send notification emails for designated highlight phrases occurrence
Write the line that includes specified highlight phrase to a specified file
Include/Exclude filters support
Support regular expression on Highlight filter and Include/Exclude filters
Monitor a folder and open file automatically when new file is created
Support file set that opens multiple files by one click
Send a notification email if a file stops updating
Draw a red line to separate new text lines from old text lines
MDI interface - Monitor multiple log files and capture OutputDebugString output at the same time
Minimize to systray and flash systray icon to indicate new lines written
Bookmarks & Number Bookmarks support
Indicate file size in window title bar
Cut/Copy/Past/Delete displayed text arbitrarily, but make no changes to the monitored log files
Refresh rate can be customized
Text search support
Display font can be customized
Display buffer size can be customized
Support mass file (up to 100GB)
Support DOS, UNIX and Unicode format log files
Drag & drop support
Command line support

Quick Tour for Hoo WinTail

MDI & Tabbed Interfaces

Monitor multiple logs at a time
Click tab item or move cursor to tab bar and scroll mouse wheel to switch log windows
You can set a color mark for special tab item of log
Hoo WinTail will flash tab icon of inactive document when new data of the document were captured

Highlight Filters

Highlight designated phrases with custom text color and background color
Highlight entire line that line includes highlight phrases
Send notification emails for designated highlight phrases occurrence
Write the line that includes specified highlight phrase to a specified file

Include/Exclude Filters

Include Filter: A line must include specific phrases then it can be shown
Exclude Filter: A line will not be shown if it includes specific phrases

Red Line

Hoo WinTail will draw a red line to separate new text lines from old text lines when new data was captured and document is inactive or Hoo WinTail loses focus
Press F12 to move to next red line and press Shift+F12 to move to previous red line

Capture OutputDebugString

Hoo WinTail can capture and display OutputDebugString output
OutputDebugString is a Windows debugging API. You can call it in all kinds of programming languages (VC/VB/C++ Builder/Delphi)

Minimize to Systray

Hoo WinTail will minimize to systray when main window minimized or press Esc
Hoo WinTail flashes systray icon when it captured new data

Bookmarks & Numeric Bookmarks

Hoo WinTail supports bookmarks and numeric bookmarks
Double-click left-margin to toggle bookmark

File Size

Hoo WinTail indicates file size in window title bar
Hoo WinTail can check whether log file were truncated automatically
You can use command "File -> Truncate" to truncate current log file

Command Line

Hoo WinTail supports command line to open logs and capture OutputDebugString output
Hoo WinTail supports the following command line arguments.
WinTail.exe [-d] [filename1] [filename2] ... [filenameN]
"-d" means capturing OutputDebugString output

Press Ctrl and Roll Mouse Wheel

Normal wheel means vertical scroll. If you press Ctrl and roll wheel, Hoo WinTail scrolls window horizontally

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