October 31, 2026 — Withdata Software announces Tail4win 6.1, the log file viewer for Windows, Linux and macOS. This release is mostly about the Linux build catching up with the Windows one — Tail4win now runs on current GTK3 desktops — and about a handful of small things that made the window harder to use than it needed to be: two buttons that meant the same thing, a status bar that showed the wrong state, and highlight keywords that only took effect after a restart.
What’s New in Tail4win 6.1
1. It Runs on Current Linux Desktops (GTK3)
Current Linux desktops ship GTK3 only, and Tail4win 6.0 was built against GTK2 — which meant it either refused to start or started with a broken window. 6.1 is built with the GTK3 widget set, uses the same fonts and spacing as the Windows build, and is delivered through the same apt and dnf repositories as the other Withdata tools, so an update is sudo apt upgrade rather than a download and a copy.
2. One Button for Run and Stop
Following a file used to need two buttons: one to start the tail, another to stop it. They are now a single button that shows pause while the tail is running and resume once it has stopped, with its own icon in each state — the same fold-and-resume idea the Windows build has had for years, now drawn at the right size for the Linux toolbar.
3. Log Files That Use a Single CR
Most log files end their lines with CRLF or LF. Some — files written by old industrial software, some routers, a few Java tools — end them with CR alone, and those files used to open as one enormous line, which makes a log viewer useless. CR-only files are read as lines now. Two smaller fixes in the same area: a file opened twice gets one tab instead of two, and a name typed without an extension no longer gets the dot appended to it.
4. Highlight and Filter Keywords Take Effect at Once
Adding a keyword to the highlight or filter list used to require closing and reopening the file before its colour appeared, which made the dialog feel broken. A new keyword is applied to what is already on screen the moment it is added, blank rows are ignored instead of creating invisible rules, and the dialog now closes properly — it used to leave the modal session open, and the editor behind it could no longer be clicked.
5. A Status Bar That Says What Is Actually Happening
The bottom of the window now carries the two pieces of state people ask about most: whether word wrap is on, and what encoding the file was read with — with a popup to change the encoding without going back to the menus. The unix to dos toggle is gone; it renamed files in place, and nobody who used it meant to do that. The shared scrollbars and toolbar hints from the other Withdata products are used here too, so the window behaves the same way it does in DataFileConverter or SQLDumpSplitter.
6. Small Repairs on the Way
The colour picker no longer stores the alpha byte that the GTK3 dialog adds to a colour — picking a colour twice used to darken it. The recent-file menu opens on GTK3 again. Two dialogs (settings, and Start a task) had overlapping controls at the smaller font size and are re-laid out. The OutputDebugString viewer is offered on Windows only, where it means something.
About Tail4win
Tail4win follows a file while it grows — a log, a build output, a capture — and lets the parts that matter stand out.
- Tail several files at once, each in its own tab, with pause and resume
- Highlight and filter keywords with colour, applied as you type them
- Handles very large files without loading them into memory, and files with any of CR, LF or CRLF line endings
- Choose the encoding explicitly; wrap long lines; keep the position across restarts
- Open special files, save and reopen sessions, and run from the command line
- Windows 10/11, Linux (
.deb,.rpm,aptanddnfrepositories) and macOS (universal, Intel and Apple Silicon, Homebrew cask)
Availability and Pricing
Tail4win 6.1 is available now. A 30-day trial is free and needs no registration; a single-user licence costs US$25 and does not expire.
- Download: https://www.withdata.com/tail4win/download.html
- What’s new: https://www.withdata.com/tail4win/news.html
About Withdata Software
Withdata Software builds small, focused desktop tools for data and media work — log and text viewers, database converters, image batch utilities — for Windows, Linux and macOS. The software runs offline and is sold as a perpetual licence, not a subscription.
Contact: support@withdata.com — https://www.withdata.com/
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