% HEXYL(1) hexyl 0.17.0 | General Commands Manual % % 2026-03-16
hexyl - a command-line hex viewer
hexyl [OPTIONS] [FILE]
hexyl is a simple hex viewer for the terminal. It uses colored output to distinguish different categories of bytes (NULL bytes, printable ASCII characters, ASCII whitespace characters, other ASCII characters, and non-ASCII bytes).
FILE : The file to display. If no FILE argument is given, read from STDIN.
-n, --length N : Only read N bytes from the input. The N argument can also include a unit with a decimal prefix (kB, MB, ..) or binary prefix (kiB, MiB, ..), or can be specified using a hex number.
Examples:
:
Read the first 64 bytes:
: $ **hexyl --length=64**
Read the first 4 kibibytes:
: $ **hexyl --length=4KiB**
Read the first 255 bytes (specified using a hex number):
: $ **hexyl --length=0xff**-c, --bytes N : An alias for -n/--length.
-l N : Yet another alias for -n/--length.
-s, --skip N : Skip the first N bytes of the input. The N argument can also include a unit (see --length for details). A negative value is valid and will seek from the end of the file.
--block-size SIZE : Sets the size of the block unit to SIZE (default is 512).
Examples:
:
Set the block size to 1024 bytes:
: $ **hexyl --block-size=1024 --length=5block**
Set the block size to 4 kilobytes:
: $ **hexyl --block-size=4kB --length=2block**-v, --no-squeezing : Display all input data. Otherwise any number of groups of output lines that would be identical to the preceding group of lines are replaced with a line comprised of a single asterisk.
--color WHEN : When to use colors. The auto mode only displays colors if the output goes to an interactive terminal. force overrides the NO_COLOR environment variable.
Possible values:
: - **always** (default)
- **auto**
- **never**
- **force**--border STYLE : Whether to draw a border.
Possible values:
: - **unicode** (default)
- **ascii**
- **none**-p, --plain : Display output with --no-characters, --no-position, --border=none, and --color=never.
--no-characters : Do not show the character panel on the right.
-C, --characters : Show the character panel on the right. This is the default unless --no-characters has been specified.
--character-table FORMAT : Define how bytes are mapped to characters.
Possible values:
: - **default** (default)
- **ascii**
- **codepage-1047**
- **codepage-437**
- **braille**--color-scheme FORMAT : Define the color scheme for the characters.
Possible values:
: - **default** (default)
- **gradient**-P, --no-position : Do not display the position panel on the left.
-o, --display-offset N : Add N bytes to the displayed file position. The N argument can also include a unit (see --length for details). A negative value is valid and calculates an offset relative to the end of the file.
--panels N : Set the number of hex data panels to be displayed. --panels=auto displays the maximum number of hex data panels based on the current terminal width. By default, hexyl shows two panels unless the terminal is not wide enough.
-g, --group-size, --groupsize N : Number of bytes/octets that should be grouped together. You can use --endianness to control the ordering of the bytes within a group.
Possible values:
: - **1** (default)
- **2**
- **4**
- **8**--endianness FORMAT : Whether to print groups in little-endian or big-endian format. This option only has an effect if --group-size is larger than 1. -e can be used as an alias for --endianness=little.
Possible values:
: - **big** (default)
- **little**-e : An alias for --endianness=little.
-b, --base B : Set the base used for the bytes. Possible options are binary, octal, decimal, and hexadecimal.
--terminal-width N : Set the number of terminal columns to be displayed. Since the terminal width may not be evenly divisible by the width per hex data column, hexyl will use the greatest number of hex data panels that can fit in the requested width while still leaving some space to the right. Cannot be used with --panels.
--print-color-table : Print a table showing how different types of bytes are colored.
-i, --include : Output in C include file style (similar to xxd -i).
--completion SHELL : Show shell completion for a certain shell.
Possible values:
: - **bash**
- **elvish**
- **fish**
- **powershell**
- **zsh**-h, --help : Print help information.
-V, --version : Print version information.
hexyl colors can be configured via environment variables. The variables used are as follows:
: - HEXYL_COLOR_ASCII_PRINTABLE: Any non-whitespace printable ASCII character - HEXYL_COLOR_ASCII_WHITESPACE: Whitespace such as space or newline (only visible in middle panel with byte values) - HEXYL_COLOR_ASCII_OTHER: Any other ASCII character (< 0x80) besides null - HEXYL_COLOR_NULL: The null byte (0x00) - HEXYL_COLOR_NONASCII: Any non-ASCII byte (> 0x7F) - HEXYL_COLOR_OFFSET: The left-hand file offset
The colors can be any of the 8 standard terminal colors: black, blue, cyan, green, magenta, red, yellow, and white. The "bright" variants are also supported (for example, bright blue). Additionally, you can use the RGB hex format, #abcdef. For example, HEXYL_COLOR_ASCII_PRINTABLE=blue HEXYL_COLOR_ASCII_WHITESPACE="bright green" HEXYL_COLOR_ASCII_OTHER="#ff7f99".
Source repository: : https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl
Print a given file: : $ hexyl small.png
Print and view a given file in the terminal pager: : $ hexyl big.png | less -r
Print the first 256 bytes of a given special file: : $ hexyl -n 256 /dev/urandom
Print output without borders, positions, characters, or colors: : $ hexyl --plain small.png
Emit C include file style output: : $ hexyl --include small.png
Generate shell completion for zsh: : $ hexyl --completion zsh
hexyl was written by David Peter mail@david-peter.de.
Bugs can be reported on GitHub at: : https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl/issues
hexyl is dual-licensed under:
: - Apache License 2.0 (https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0) - MIT License (https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
hexdump(1), xxd(1)