which text editor is best for open large files more than 3 gb

Opening and editing files larger than 3 GB is very challenging because most regular text editors (like Notepad, Notepad++, Sublime, VS Code) will crash or freeze due to memory limitations.

Here are the best tools/editors for handling very large files:


Specialized Large File Editors

  1. Large Text File Viewer (LTFViewer) – Free, lightweight, and made for gigabyte-sized files.
    Works well up to 10+ GB.
  2. Glogg – Open-source log file explorer, fast searching in huge files.
    Great for log analysis, not full editing.
  3. EmEditor (Windows) – Paid but excellent, handles files over 200 GB.
    Advanced search, editing, column mode, regex support.
  4. UltraEdit (Windows/Linux/Mac) – Paid, optimized for large files, very stable.
    Handles multi-GB files smoothly.
  5. 010 Editor – Hex + text editor that can handle huge files.
    Useful if you want both binary and text operations.

For Viewing Only

  • Less (Linux/Unix) – less bigfile.txt lets you scroll without loading the whole file into memory.
  • Vim (with special configs) – Can open very large files but editing may be slow.
  • LogExpert – Windows tool for live viewing big log files.

Alternative Approach (if editing not mandatory)

For searching/filtering instead of full editing:

  • Use grep, awk, sed (Linux command-line tools).
  • Split file into smaller chunks with: split -b 500M bigfile.txt chunk_ and then open only the needed part.

My Recommendation:

  • If you need editingEmEditor (best overall, but paid) or UltraEdit.
  • If you just need to view/searchLarge Text File Viewer (free) or glogg.
  • If you are on Linux → use less, vim, or command-line tools.



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