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.

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7 Answers

To view the file, run:

xxd filename | less

To use Vim as a hex editor:

  1. Open the file in Vim.
  2. Run :%!xxd (transform buffer to hex)
  3. Edit.
  4. Run :%!xxd -r (reverse transformation)
  5. Save.
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  1. Open file with Xcode and press Command + Shift + J
  2. Right click file name in left pane
  3. Open as -> Hex
4

One recommendation I've gotten is Hex Fiend.

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On you can get the hex editor I'm developing for the Mac - Synalyze It!. It costs 7 € / 40 € (Pro version) and offers some extra features like histogram, incremental search, support of many text encodings and interactive definition of a "grammar" for your file format.

The grammar helps to interpret the files and colors the hex view for easier analysis.

Synalyze It!

4

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

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

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

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