Hex file editor windows

Opening and efficient handling of huge files

During hex editor program development we focused on its performance and reliability, so the product is based on the most advanced and efficient data processing algorithms. We have created an absolutely unique data editing software, which is able to successfully handle files of ANY size and has absolutely no analogues in this regard. Thus, any extra large file supported by the underlying file system (FAT, FAT32, NTFS) is automatically supported by our product.

Instant data processing regardless of size

Thanks to the use of highly efficient algorithms, hardware acceleration and extensive use of multi-threading technology, the product always remains responsive and quickly performs all binary data editing and file modification operations (including basic I/O, search, replace and clipboard operations) with data blocks of unlimited size. Thus, only using our hex editing software you avoid situations when you lose all modifications due to unpredictably long data processing operations.

Basic file editing features

Using this binary file editing software, you can perform most manipulations with the file data. You can type data, write data to file (direct hex file modification), select data, remove selections, insert data into file, delete binary data from file, insert another file, fill selection with raw hex data patterns, save/load files. It supports overwrite/insert writing modes and allows you to use clipboard: cut, copy/paste, merge data. Modified data is highlighted. You can use ‘goto offset’ command or make quick address bookmarks for easy navigation.

Portable hex editor installation

Product setup supports installation of hex editor in portable mode. Once installed, the portable version of hex editor can be copied to any location, transferred to different computers without using the installer anymore. In portable mode setup allows the user to select a removable drive or network share as a destination folder. Hex editor portable edition doesn’t make any changes to the system registry, doesn’t use shell extensions and creates no shortcuts. All changes are limited to a file system and transacted on supported operating systems.

Advanced formatting & grouping options

By default Hex Editor Neo displays binary/hexadecimal data as a grid of cells with editable hex codes and allows you to configure number of columns. Codes can be displayed as Binary, Hex, Decimal, Octal, Float or Double grouped by Bytes, Words, Double Words and Quad Words allowing you to view and edit it in a variety of formats, including single-precision floating-point format (IEEE 754) and double-precision floating-point format (IEEE 754). A view type is a property of individual editor window, so you can open several editor windows with different view types for your convenience.

Extremely flexible UI: layouts, skins, color schemes

Hex editor application comes with professionally designed color schemes to enhance your productivity. You can customize every visible aspect of the editor and save customizations as a scheme. You can customize toolbars, layouts, placements, fonts, colors, keyboard shortcuts, directories used to search for included files, associations between structures and file extensions. Most interface dialogs allow you to change their size and save it to be automatically restored next time you use it. Input fields store entered values and provide you with a list of recently used items.

Instant search for specific data

The Find command allows you to search data within selection or whole file and instantly find Binary/Hex data patterns. Searching for Decimal/Octal/Float/Double patterns is also supported. Product supports searching for chars and ASCII text strings as well as Unicode texts. When the pattern is found, the cursor is moved to the beginning of located fragment. To continue searching, just use the ‘Edit » Find Next’ or ‘Edit » Find Previous’ commands. In order to find binary-values, hex-values, byte patterns, integers, floats or texts just switch input type, then your choice and search history will be saved for your convenience.

Instant search with data replacement

The Replace command is used to find a specific hex/text pattern in a binary file and replace it with different one. The Find & Replace Dialog is used to specify both patterns and search options. The length of the search and replace pattern is not limited and you can replace any found fragment with a different fragment of arbitrary length or even with an empty one (the found pattern occurrences are removed from the document). When you use replacing function, binary file editor starts searching for a pattern. When pattern is located, the cursor is moved to the beginning of the pattern and a number of options are provided.

Unlimited Undo and Redo

The product effectively stores all data regarding modifications you make to the document and provides support for an unlimited number of operations that can be reverted and repeated. The hex modifier allows you to browse through the recent file modifications in the operations history, use the Undo or Redo commands, as well as a special History Tool Window. Thanks to the efficient storage structure and most advanced data processing algorithms, any number of changes you have made to the file can be reverted and repeated instantly, regardless of the document size.

Modifications history saving & loading

For your convenience, we have created a separate window with a visual representation of all changes you make to the source file or data. The entire operations history can be compressed and saved to your disk in the form of a file. It then may be loaded and applied to the same document, effectively restoring all modifications made to the binary file and it’s revision branches. In this way, you can share the entire changes history with a colleague so that in addition to the final result, he can also track the whole sequence of your modifications that led to this result.

Automatic patch creation

The product provides you with the ability to instantly create patches. A binary patch is a difference between two states of a document. The patch can be distributed and applied to the same file resulting in the same modifications being made to a source file. With just single click you can create x86 or x64 patch file. Hex Editor makes binary diff between original and result revisions of a document and automatically creates 32bit or 64bit patch file. You can also create self-installing exe patch. Self-installing exe patch file also supports file hash checking. Hex Editor Patch API provides additional methods of applying patches.

Regular expressions support

Viewing and editing file attributes

Our hex editor supports editing of file attribute states. You can view file attributes, edit some of it, apply modifications and revert back edited attributes at any time. Here is a list of file attributes supported by our editor: File name, Archive, Hidden, System, Read-Only, Sparse file, Temporary, Off-line, Encrypted, Compressed, Has Reparse Points, Created Date/Time, Last Access Date/Time, Last Write Date/Time, Hard Links, Streams, Total Size.

Settings manager

Our hex editing tool kit is designed to protect user settings. It also allows you to safely transfer settings to a new workstation or laptop. Settings Manager allows you to export/import almost all of your settings or safely reset them to the application defaults. There is also an option for you to choose where to store personal settings. It can be sored in Windows registry (Registry Mode), local file (Portable Mode) or even on shared locations (OneDrive, Dropbox).

Document printing

Multilingual user interface

Native support for Windows color themes

Our editor is the only one of the binary editors now that provides native support for Windows color themes, including dark ones. All interface elements, including the editable area and documents opened there automatically support your Windows colors and style, making the editing process pleasing to the eye in any light.

Native support for high-DPI displays

Neo is the only binary file editor that provides you with a 100% high-DPI friendly user interface. It’s the only one that doesn’t use bitmap graphics at all. All UI elements, including icons, are made using vector graphics only, so they scale to high resolutions without any issues or artifacts.

Editing files opened in external applications

Our hexadecimal editor may share edited binary files with external applications. When an external application modifies a shared file, HexEdit Neo detects it and allows you to either discard the changes or merge it with modifications already made in the editor. Automatic file compare utility (hex diff tool) may be used to find differences between the current and previous versions. Optionally, all previous revisions of the file may be kept by the hex editor app and used in your work.

Pattern coloring (max. 3 rules)

Find All

Our hex editor allows you to find all pattern entries in a text or binary file within a single operation. This absolutely unique feature allows you to search a million pattern occurrences in a gigabytes of data in just seconds. Only our product is able to provide you with a detailed list with millions offsets within the file where the searched data occurs in a few seconds. And even more, you will get a ready-to-use multiple selection of all the regions with occurring data. If necessary, it can be converted to bookmarks. Selection Details window may be used to browse results. Message box with a total number of occurrences found is displayed when searching finishes.

Replace All

This extremely powerful command can be used to locate all occurrences of one pattern and then replace them with another one. The Find & Replace dialog is used to specify both patterns and search/replace options. There are no any size restrictions, you can specify any length of replacement patterns. Feature supports finding and replacing string patterns in almost any character encoding (including UTF8 & UTF16 Unicode strings). It also supports replacing of hex, decimal/integer, binary, octal, float, double data patterns. Regular expressions are also supported for both find and replace patterns, making this product indispensable in complicated replace scenarios.

Visual operations & modifications history browsing

We have created a simple and intuitive instrument for easy document modification management that supports branching — Operation History. This is an absolutely unique feature of our product, which allows you to manage clearly visualized changes in just one mouse click. History Tool Window displays file modification operations as an illustrated list. Similar operations are grouped by default for your convenience. Different branches or document revisions are marked with an overlay icon. To switch to a given operation/branch, just click it. All document windows are immediately updated to reflect changes.

Visual operations & modifications history options

There are a number of options within the operations history that make it easier to work with. The first is a separate interactive window, where all operations made over the document are presented as a tree with their mutual relations and branches. Each tree element describes the operation performed on the document and is active. With just one click you can turn the document into the state that the document was in when the described operation was performed. There is also Purge function that provides you with a history purging capabilities making it easy for you to navigate through the list.

Multiple selection support

The unique multiple selection concept is used throughout the Hex Editor Neo. A multiple selection is a collection of contiguous ranges. Such selection may arise as a result of user’s action or as a result of executing a command. All Hex Editor Neo’s commands and modules fully support multiple selections and work with them in a very efficient way. A multiple selection collection can be converted into bookmarks and vice versa for your convenience.

Selection saving, loading and exporting

A multiple selection of any complexity may be compressed and saved to a file. It then may be loaded to any document, possibly merging with an existing selection. This opens up a variety of additional file editing options that are not possible with any other tool. For example, you can first create a special file filled with a specific sequence of bytes, execute find all command and get a multiple selection that can be used then with a different file.

Base converter

Data inspector

Bookmarks

Hex Editor Neo supports advanced bookmarking. Bookmarks support grouping and color highlighting for bookmarked regions. Unlimited number of bookmarks can be created within each group. You can create, edit bookmarks, name them for easy navigation and set coloring schemes for convenient tooltips recognition. You can even manage bookmarks behavior scenarios. The distinctive feature of our editor is that the bookmark concept is closely integrated with other components and can interact with them. You can save/load bookmarks, convert selections to bookmarks and vice versa.

Encodings

Hex Editor Neo is capable of displaying text in the text pane according to a selected character encoding. More than 130 different encodings are supported (subject to installed code page files and fonts). Encoding can be specified separately for each editor window. Different ANSI, EBCDIC, UNICODE, ISO, OEM, ISCII, MAC as well as US-ASCII (7-bit), KOI8-R, KOI8-U, T.61, EUC, IA5, Europa 3, IBM5550, Asian and most country-specific encodings are supported. Multi-byte UNICODE character sets are also supported including UTF-8, UTF-16 (UTF-16LE, UTF-16BE charsets) with or without BOM.

Advanced Copy & Export (Raw Text Format)

Advanced Copy & Export (Formatted Data Format)

Smart text pasting

The editor allows you to operate with clipboard and texts in a most convenient way. Almost all text converting and parsing tasks is performed automatically. If you are pasting text data from the clipboard, then, depending on where you plan to paste it, the data will be converted to the appropriate format and correctly pasted from the buffer. Text is either inserted «as is» if the text panel is active, or it is parsed as a sequence of hexadecimal or decimal integers if the code panel is active.

Built-in Explorer

For the most convenient browsing of folders, files and work with the file system Hex Editor Neo provides you with two Windows Explorer-like windows as part of its user interface. They can be used for regular file and folder operations and are tightly integrated with all other functions of the editor. You can open files in the editor by double-clicking them in the Explorer window and simply dragging them to the editor window. Standard Edition unlocks single explorer window.

Byte editor (Modify Bits)

Technical support

Opening disks (physical disk editor)

Hex Editor Neo supports opening physical disks for raw data viewing and editing. The product parses all necessary disk information and shows it in the Volume Navigator window. For easy navigation and disk sectors editing this window is synchronized with the main editor window. Each individual object in the Volume Navigator window is associated with its offset inside the loaded disk data, which makes the process of disk editing simple and easy. Hex Editor Neo supports hard disk drives (HDD), SSD, CD/DVD/BD, USB flash drives and other USB disks editing.

Opening volumes (logical disk editor)

Hex Editor Neo supports opening volumes (logical disks) for viewing and editing. The product parses partition tables and disk volumes data, analyzes file system information and then displays disk structure: directories, files and streams in the Volume Navigator window. Each folder, file or stream object is associated with its offset inside the disc volume data within main editor window. For each such element, the relevant structure is automatically loaded into the Structure Viewer, volume data in the main editor window are parsed according to the loaded definitions and important regions are highlighted.

Editing virtual memory (Open Process)

Hex Editor Neo allows you to open virtual memory of any running process for read-only or read-write access. Using ‘Open Process’ feature you may easily navigate though virtual address space and edit virtual memory of any process. There is an easy-to-use GUI for this function with a wide range of available tools for deep memory data analysis and convenient address space navigation, making our product one of the best memory editors available for the Windows platform today.

Opening computer physical memory (RAM)

Hex Editor Neo allows you to get a read-only view for the computer physical memory (RAM). This feature is available on Windows versions that provide direct access to the physical random-access memory. And while the system provides read-only access to physical memory, the product still allows you to copy memory segments to the file and then edit it locally, using all the power of the standard hex data editing features. Our Hex Editor is a convenient RAM viewer for Windows.

Data encryption and decryption

Hex Editor Neo allows you to encrypt or decrypt binary/text file or just a part of it’s data using any installed block or stream cipher, including: RSA Security RC2 (ARC2) or RC4 (Rivest Cipher 4 aka ARC4), Data Encryption Standard (DES) symmetric-key algorithm, two-key/three-key Triple DES encryption (3DES or TDES), Advanced Encryption Standard 128-bit, AES 192 bits, AES 256 bits and more. Hex Editor Neo allows you to specify a password, encryption key length and a number of additional options.

Logical bitwise & arithmetic data operations

Hex Editor Neo allows you to apply logical and mathematical operations to the fragments of file modifying edited data at the level of the individual bits. A large set of data operations are provided including Bitwise operators: NOT, OR, AND, XOR, Arithmetic operators: Negation, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Remainder, Logical & Arithmetic Shifts, Case Conversion operators: Case Change Lower to Upper, Upper to Lower, Invert Case; inverse Bits, Byte Swap and more.

Structure Viewer (binary templates)

Hex Editor Neo provides an advanced data analysis and editing feature called Structure Viewer. This function allows you to bind binary templates to the data in such a way that each file or binary dump can be easily analyzed and edited using appropriate data format. For many known file types hex editor automatically loads built-in binary template from the library and parses the data according to the data format definition provided. Each field of structured data then could be edited. The product allows you to write your own format, add it to the library and then parse any custom data according to specified definition. You can exchange template files with your colleagues.

Data analysis and statistics

Hex Editor Neo provides unique capability of calculating several file statistics. You may calculate General Statistics and Pattern Statistics for any opened document. In addition, Descriptive Statistics (Mean, Median, Mode(s), Sample Variance, Standard Deviation, Standard Error, Kurtosis, Skewness, Minimum, Maximum) is calculated for both modes, and Entropy Analysis is performed for General Statistics mode. It also provides you with a convenient graphical representation of the byte/character distribution within a file or a selected fragment thereof. Multiple selections are fully supported.

Support for Kaitai structures

Our new built-in Kaitai structure editor and visualizer allows you to create various binary data structures and automatically parse the opened files according to the definitions specified in your .ksy files.

Parsing new structures

The Pro version gives you access to parsing new data formats. We are constantly adding new popular data formats to our editor, this time we added automatic parsing of MessagePack, QOI and webp formats.

Opening Intel HEX files

Opening Motorola S-record files

Editor windows synchronization

You can connect two editor windows with each other. This synchronizes cursor movement in both windows, which is an extremely useful editing technique in some scenarios. Synchronization works in two modes. One window can be split into two copies and both instances are synchronized. Two arbitrary windows of different documents can also be synchronized with each other.

Operations & modifications history branching

Hex Editor Neo provides the unique feature, called operation history branching, which supports editing multiple revisions of the file simultaneously. It allows exchanging data between operations from different branches via Clipboard. Using this feature you can support multiple resulting versions of the source file. By providing this, along with the ability to save and load modifications history, the Hex Editor Neo proves to be an indispensable hexadecimal editing toolkit for students, teachers, instructors and digital forensic specialists.

Advanced Copy & Export (Encoded Data Format)

Checksum & hash calculations

Product supports more than 20 checksum calculation algorithms, including summators, signed sums, hashes and checksums. Hex Editor supports hash calculation algorithms: Secure Hash Algorithms — SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512, FNV-1, FNV-1a, Message-Digest algorithms — MD2, MD4, MD5, RIPEMD Message Digest — RIPEMD-128, RIPEMD-160. Hex Editor supports checksum calculation algorithms: CRC-16, CCITT CRC16, CRC-32, CRC XMODEM, CRC-64, CRC-64/WE, CRC-64/XZ, Adler-32, Fletcher-32. Custom CRC calculation algorithm is also provided. You can compute the checksum for the whole file or for the current (multiple) selection. Hex Editor Neo allows you to export calculated checksum results or copy it to the Clipboard.

Pattern coloring (unlimited rules)

Built-in Explorer (second window)

For the most convenient browsing of folders, files and work with the file system Hex Editor Neo provides you with two Windows Explorer-like windows as part of its user interface. They can be used for regular file and folder operations and are tightly integrated with all other functions of the editor. You can open files in the editor by double-clicking them in the Explorer window and simply dragging them to the editor window. Standard Edition unlocks single explorer window. Professional Edition adds the second Explorer window to the user interface.

Find in Files

The Find in Files command is used to search a list of files for a specified pattern. You specify the list of folders and file mask that determine the list of files and you enter a pattern to search. You may also search using regular expressions. Searching in NTFS streams is also supported. Find in Files function operates in one of two modes: Find at least one occurrence and Find all occurrences. The implementation of Find in Files command scales well, that is, it works faster on multi-core or multi-processor computers. Several dedicated threads of execution are launched on such computers and perform searching and replacing in parallel.

Replace in Files

The Replace in Files command is used to search a list of files for a specified pattern and replace it with another one. You specify the list of folders and file mask that determine the list of files, then enter both search and replace patterns. The «Find and replace mode» switch is used to enable this command. Replace in Files function operates in one of two modes: Replace all occurrences and save and Replace all occurrences and open. The implementation of Replace in Files command scales well, that is, it works faster on multi-core or multi-processor computers. Several dedicated threads are launched on such computers and perform processing in parallel.

Support for NTFS alternate data streams

Hex Editor Neo supports NTFS alternate data streams. A special NTFS Streams Tool Window displays all stream information for the currently active file. Hex Editor Neo supports the following NTFS stream manipulations: delete, rename, open for editing or create new stream. This makes it a great tool for alternate data streams forensics.

Searching for NTFS streams (stream detector)

Hex Editor Neo allows you search NTFS drives or folders and find files with linked alternate data streams. This tool supports searching for files of a certain type or size, supports exclusions and even allows you to search NTFS streams using Regular Expressions. Found NTFS data streams may then be opened in the editor or deleted.

Compare files (binary diff/hex diff/text diff)

Hex Editor Neo allows you to compare binary files or texts. We used the fastest file comparison algorithms that work efficiently on large files. Our file comparison tool offers you both — simple binary comparison algorithm and an advanced differential file comparison algorithm, that allows you to efficiently isolate differences between binary/text files or just hex dumps.

x86 Disassembler

Hex Editor Neo includes a x86 disassembler module. It allows disassembly of 32-bit x86 code (Intel MMX, SSE, SSE2 and AMD 3DNow! processor instruction sets are supported). The module automatically loads debugging symbols for better assembly output readability and automatically updates itself when the document is modified. It disassembles both files and processes’ memory blocks.

x64 Disassembler

Hex Editor Neo includes a x64 disassembler module. It allows disassembly of 64-bit x86-64 code (Intel SSE4 and SSE4.1 processor instruction sets are supported). The module automatically loads debugging symbols for better assembly output readability and automatically updates itself when the document is modified. It disassembles both files and processes’ memory blocks.

.NET Disassembler

Hex Editor Neo .NET Disassembler is a kind of IL disassembler that translates MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language) portable executable PE files to an ILAsm intermediate language codes. The module automatically parses metadata, loads debugging symbols for better assembly output readability and automatically updates itself when the document is modified. It disassembles both files and processes’ memory blocks.

ARM, ARM-64 (ARMv8/AArch64) Disassembler

Disassembler supports 32-bit ARM (ARM32) and 64/32-bit ARM-64 (aka ARMv8/AArch64) architectures. All the most popular ARM CPU (including Cortex-A processor family) instruction sets are supported.

MIPS, RISC-V, SPARC, XCore Disassembler

Neo can disassemble binaries for the several RISC-based architectures, including MIPS (micromips, mips32, mips64 and more), RISCV, SPARC and XCore. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are supported.

PowerPC Disassembler

Hex Editor Neo provides you with the ability to disassemble PowerPC binaries for game consoles, desktops and embedded systems. Both 32-bit PowerPC and 64-bit PowerPC versions are supported.

More Disassemblers

It also supports Motorola 68K, 680X, MOS65XX (including 6502), Texas Instruments TMS320C64X, IBM System z and more. Please contact us if you are missing some vital instruction sets.

Parsing disk structures (Volume Navigator)

For easy and convenient removable drives or fixed disk editing, Hex Editor Neo supports disk volume structures parsing. It instantly parses Master Boot record (MBR), GUID Partition Table (GPT), Volume Boot Record (VBR) and other NTFS, CDFS, FAT, FAT32, ExFAT file system structures. Product then synchronizes entries in Volume Navigator window with offsets in the main editor window allowing you to quickly find, analyze and edit binary data of required items. So you may easily navigate though the file system and edit partition boot sector, folders, files and alternate NTFS streams directly on the disk.

Scripting

Hex Editor SDK

Our product is not only an advanced binary data editing solution for users, but also a great tool for developers. The Hex Editor SDK provides ActiveX/COM and .NET components that allow you to use the features of Hex Editor Neo from code written in C++, C#, Java, Delphi, Rust or JavaScript without accessing the editor’s GUI. The Hex Editor API comes with detailed documentation for developers. In this way, you can easily use Neo’s binary/text data processing functions within your project.

Quick data annotations

Macros recording

Create, record and replay macros. This feature allows you to automate almost any task you perform with the editor. The macro scripts you have recorded can be edited later. There is built-in script editor with syntax highlighting, command autocompletion and debugging capabilities.

Priority suggestions

We are constantly improving our editor. Most of the new features are intended for inclusion in the Ultimate edition of the product. Please contact us if you are using the Ultimate edition and are missing some vital functionality.