Android desktop log viewer

Question

My Android application may save logcat logs to a file. This log file is then sent to developers for analysis.

Is there a nice desktop android log viewer application, which would visualize these logs?

I wasn't able to find a ready to use tool in Android SDK. Maybe I missed something there?

Personally, I read logs with less and it's search feature, or occasionally emacs, but that's probably a less polished solution than desired — Chris Stratton, Dec 01 '10 at 15:10

score 34 · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-15T12:35:29.877

34

Desktop tool for reading android logcat log file, the same as DDMS. enter image description here The purpose of this tool is to allow developers to quickly locate, analyze, problem-solving, rather than struggling in the log file.

Feature: http://code.google.com/p/androidlogcatviewer/wiki/KeyFeature

Download: http://code.google.com/p/androidlogcatviewer/downloads/list

Discuss-group: http://groups.google.com/group/androidlogcatviewer

edited Apr 15 '12 at 12:35

answered Apr 14 '12 at 13:47

I can't get this tool to read my logs I created with adb (neither "adb logcat -v long > somefile.log" nor "adb logcat > somefile.log"). When I choose a log file, nothing happens. How do you create the logs? – user1772710 Jan 21 '14 at 15:14
Got it, has to be "adb logcat -v time" – user1772710 Jan 22 '14 at 12:54
Didn't get it to run on OS X (Maverick) or Windows 8.1. Nice pic though. :/ – akauppi Apr 11 '14 at 14:20
In the discussion board, there are instructions on how to make this run on 64-bit Windows. Didn't start doing that, but just so you realize a) it needs to be done b) it's possible. – akauppi Apr 16 '14 at 14:17
Even though it's java, it unfortunately won't run on my linux (Kubuntu 14.04, 32 Bit). It terminates with an exeption when trying to start. – Joe Jul 19 '14 at 01:37
Can somebody tell me where is the location of logcat file in my device? – Innocent Mar 30 '18 at 06:14
How can I use this in windows? I can't find the link in the group section. – Nitin Jul 09 '18 at 12:59

score 14 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 06 '16 at 15:20

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I've tried logview-0.19 - works fine for my 13Mb logs.

Make sure to mark ./logview and ./lib/logview.jar as executable when running in Linux.

edited Oct 06 '16 at 15:20

naXa stands with Ukraine

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answered Nov 03 '11 at 20:33

St.Shadow

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Seems to do the job. I'm surprised by how few tools exist for this job. I feel an itch... :) – scorpiodawg Jul 30 '12 at 20:51
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Another offline tool – Henrique de Sousa Feb 02 '16 at 10:48
This is my favourite ♥ – naXa stands with Ukraine Oct 06 '16 at 15:18
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@HenriquedeSousa what do you mean by "offline"? It is possible to capture live logs from the connected device with logview, you just need to set up adb location if the latter isn't on the PATH. – Darth Beleg Feb 26 '20 at 21:11

Sufian · Answer 3 · 2017-12-04T08:51:00.657

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I found Online LogCat Beautifier to which can colourize given LogCat for easy reading. Really nice tool and it uses JavaScript, which means nothing is stored anywhere!

LogCat Beautifier in action

Update:

The link is no longer accessible, and luckily enough for us, Android Studio now supports pasting the LogCat into its "LogCat" tab (previously "Monitor"). Upon pasting, you'd have the options to search/click like a normal LogCat's log.

edited Dec 04 '17 at 08:51

answered Sep 04 '14 at 11:08

Sufian

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This is a tool to analyze _offline_ logcat records. – Henrique de Sousa Feb 02 '16 at 10:51
You should also check out Android Studio's "Analyze stacktrace" by going to **Analyze > Analyze stacktrace**. See this G+ post https://plus.google.com/+IanLake/posts/jk4x5RoyXJm – Sufian Feb 02 '16 at 11:33
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@HenriquedeSousa in case last comment didn't generate a notification. – Sufian Jul 09 '16 at 09:12

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 22 '17 at 05:54

5

Splinter Log works on MacOS and can do a few things better than DDMS, like grouping tags, resolving pids to package name, etc. https://splinter-log.com

answered Mar 22 '17 at 05:54

dzlatkov

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Looks promising, but Mac-only =( – Dominikus K. Apr 10 '17 at 20:06
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...and again, offline tool – Dave Nottage Aug 09 '18 at 22:22
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How to use this for seeing log information of connected device ?? – Siddharth Jan 18 '19 at 12:10
This answer is not clear on how to actually use the software to solve the problem presented in this question... – Gabriel Fair Dec 17 '19 at 03:07

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 14 '13 at 05:32

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You can use Android Debug Monitor or DDMS without Eclipse.

answered Oct 14 '13 at 05:32

Jim McKeeth

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Just an update.. DDMS is now deprecated. Instead we should use: `sdk_path/tools/monitor`. On OSX, `ddms`can't save some custom filters I created, whereas `monitor` can. – Paschalis Jun 02 '14 at 17:24
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Yes, that is _Android Debug Monitor_, but there wasn't any online details about it when I wrote my answer, and it is very similar to DDMS. – Jim McKeeth Jun 02 '14 at 21:48
Nothing happened running `sdk_path/tools/monitor` on windows. – zwcloud Feb 19 '21 at 07:42

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 01 '10 at 15:35

I use coloredlogcat for viewing logcat logs on the console. You should be able to do the same.

cat logfile | coloredlogcat.py

It should work out of the box. If it doesn't, I'm sure only minor modifications are needed. Have a look at this link coloredlogcat for details.

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 15 '13 at 20:07

I've tweaked log4j Chainsaw V2 and the (VFS)LogFilePatternReceiver to allow Chainsaw to read events from Android log files generated via logcat -v time

Download the latest developer snapshot of Chainsaw (Mac DMG and tarball available): http://people.apache.org/~sdeboy

Save this XML off as a file (after tweaking the fileURL):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<log4j:configuration xmlns:log4j="http://jakarta.apache.org/log4j/" debug="true">
<plugin class="org.apache.log4j.chainsaw.vfs.VFSLogFilePatternReceiver" name="android-log">
    <param name="appendNonMatches" value="true"/>
    <param name="autoReconnect" value="true"/>
    <param name="fileURL" value="file:/path/to/android/log"/>
    <param name="name" value="android-log"/>
    <param name="logFormat" value="TIMESTAMP LEVEL/LOGGER(PROP(PID)):MESSAGE"/> 
    <param name="customLevelDefinitions" value="V=TRACE,D=DEBUG,I=INFO,W=WARN,E=ERROR,F=FATAL,S=OFF"/>
    <param name="promptForUserInfo" value="false"/>
    <param name="tailing" value="true"/>
    <param name="timestampFormat" value="yyyyMMdd HH:mm:ss.SSS"/>
    <param name="waitMillis" value="2000"/>
</plugin>
</log4j:configuration>

And then after starting Chainsaw, select the 'Use a Chainsaw config file' option from the 'File, load Chainsaw configuration' menu, browse to this XML file, select 'always start Chainsaw with this configuration' and press OK.

This works well on os x, solving my problem that the Eclipse logcat view often stops working. Exactly what I was looking for! I see the latest stable build is dated after your post so I'm wondering if it's now good to use rather than the snapshot you suggest? — Dwight Gunning, Apr 03 '13 at 04:40

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered May 25 '14 at 06:53

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I like LogExpert. It has great filtering options and it is pretty fast. So I have created a custom columnizer that parses LogCat logs. It has some improvements to be able to parse my custom logs with method and line. You can download it here.

answered May 25 '14 at 06:53

Bhiefer

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Looks again like Windows only :-( – Joe Jul 19 '14 at 00:56
The link is broken. This link should be working: https://github.com/zarunbal/LogExpert – Bennik2000 Jan 23 '22 at 18:28

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Aug 26 '15 at 11:49

Personally I like TailExpert which I use together with logcatUDP to capture logs from multiple android targets, logcatUDP sends the log over the network to tailexpert where I capture it and view the side by side. But you can also read the logs from file if you like, it's a tail program so it will add logmessages to the view when they arrive. You can filter messages on keywords and use colors to identify certain logmessages. The other thing I like is that in tailexpert you can create columnizers on the fly and easily hide one or more columns or change the column order. The program is packed with features and I recently just started to discover the use of notifications to place bookmarks on the fly and halt the log when a certain logmessages passes by, which makes navigation so much quicker. Just check it out, you can download it here.

score -1 · Answer 10 · answered Jan 21 '15 at 09:36

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I went with http://mlogcat.tistory.com/ now, since Logcat Offline Viewer quit its job probably due to JAVA update.

answered Jan 21 '15 at 09:36

OneWorld

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Android desktop log viewer

10 Answers10

Update:

Linked