Open files in VS Code and Cursor / Binary, network and hardware
Use a hex editor in VS Code
VS Code has no hex editor built in. Install the free Hex Viewer by Zovo, right-click any file and pick "Open in Hex Viewer". You get the bytes in hex and text, go to offset, find with ?? wildcards, a data inspector, byte editing with insert, delete and undo, and a byte-by-byte compare of two files. Only the rows on screen are read, so a 4 GB file opens in under a second.
Free, MIT license. Extension ID zovo.zovo-hex-viewer, version 0.3.7. Needs VS Code 1.90.0 or newer.
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Steps in VS Code
- Install Hex Viewer from the Marketplace, or press Ctrl+P (Cmd+P on macOS) and run
ext install zovo.zovo-hex-viewer. - Right-click any file in the Explorer and pick "Open in Hex Viewer". Files ending in
.bin,.dat,.img,.rom,.dmpor.dumpopen in it when you click them. - Press Ctrl+G (Cmd+G on macOS) to go to an offset such as
0x1F40,+0x100orend. - Press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F) to find hex bytes like
50 4B ?? 04, text, or UTF-16 text. - Type two hex digits to overwrite a byte, or press Insert to add bytes. Delete removes the selected bytes. Ctrl+Z undoes, and Ctrl+S saves.
Steps in Cursor, Windsurf or VSCodium
- Open the Extensions view with Ctrl+Shift+X (Cmd+Shift+X on macOS).
- Search for
zovo.zovo-hex-viewerand click Install. Cursor, Windsurf and VSCodium install from Open VSX, where it is published aszovo/zovo-hex-viewer. - If your editor has no gallery, download the .vsix from the Open VSX page and run "Extensions: Install from VSIX...".
- Then use it the same way as in VS Code.
What Hex Viewer handles
- Files of any size. Only the rows on screen are read, and the scroll bar reaches the last byte of a 4 GB file.
- A data inspector with integers from 8 to 64 bits, float16, float32 and float64, LEB128, Unix time, FILETIME, GUID, UTF-8 and UTF-16, in little or big-endian.
- Copy as hex, a C array, Python bytes, base64 or text.
- 8 to 64 bytes per row, and a text column in ASCII, Latin-1, UTF-8, UTF-16 or EBCDIC.
- Compare two files: select both in the Explorer and pick "Compare in Hex Viewer". F7 jumps to the next difference, also in two 4 GB files.
- Clear messages for empty files, files you cannot read, and files that change on disk while open.
What it does not do
- The Structure view, which reads PNG, ZIP, ELF, PE and 16 more formats into named fields, is part of Zovo Pro, with 3 free tries. So are bookmarks, checksums, the compare report and find in many files.
- Copy as works up to 32 MB and a paste up to 16 MB. Files on remote and virtual file systems open up to 256 MB.
In JetBrains IDEs (IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, WebStorm, CLion and others)
- Hex Viewer & Binary Viewer by Zovo. Our own JetBrains version. It was submitted to the JetBrains Marketplace and was still waiting for JetBrains review on 9 November 2026, so the page may not offer an install yet.
- BinEd - Binary/Hex Editor. A binary and hex editor plugin with 500,180 downloads. Use "Open In / Binary Editor" in the project files menu.
- Hex Editor. A hex editor for IntelliJ-based IDEs that views and edits any file as raw bytes, with 47,982 downloads.
Other options
- Hex Editor (Microsoft) (
ms-vscode.hexeditor, 7.5 million installs, on Open VSX). Its own description: "Allows viewing and editing files in a hex editor". It is the most installed hex editor for VS Code by far, and it is on Open VSX too. - nifty-hex (
nifty.nifty-hex, 109 installs, on Open VSX). Its own description: "Edit binary files: overwrite, insert and delete bytes with undo, a data inspector, hex and text search, go to offset, and a structure view for PNG, ZIP, WAV, ELF and PE files." Pick it if you want a structure view for free. - Hex Editor with tags (
notblank00.hexeditor, 61,381 installs, not on Open VSX). Its own description: "A mod of the Hex Editor by Microsoft with added tag support". Not on Open VSX. - HxD, Hex Fiend or ImHex. Free desktop hex editors for Windows, macOS and Linux. ImHex can parse file structures with its pattern language.
Install counts and Open VSX status were checked on 9 November 2026. Descriptions in quotes are the extensions' own.
Questions
Is there a built-in hex editor in VS Code?
No. You need an extension. Hex Viewer by Zovo and the Hex Editor from Microsoft are both free.
Can it open a file larger than 4 GB?
Yes. It never reads the whole file. It reads the rows you look at, and Find reads the file in 1 MB pieces.
Can I insert or delete bytes?
Yes, since version 0.2.0. Press Insert to switch between overwrite and insert mode. Delete, Backspace, cut and paste work on any selection, and the change is instant even in a 4 GB file, because only a list of changes is kept until you save.
More about Hex Viewer
Read the Hex Viewer page for every feature and setting, or the source code on GitHub.
Related guides
- Hex Viewer & Binary Viewer on the VS Code Marketplace (also on Open VSX). Opens any file as hex, edits bytes and compares two files, even files of many GB.
- Open a binary file in VS Code
- Read binary files with templates in a VS Code hex editor
- A 010 Editor alternative inside VS Code
- Compare binary files in VS Code
Zovo Pro and support
Zovo Pro: USD 19 once, every Zovo viewer. It turns on the Pro tools in this extension and in the other Zovo extensions you use. The free features stay free.
After a card payment your license key shows on the next page. Paste it with the command "Zovo Pro: Enter a key".
You can also support the work with no Pro:
Need your format supported?
Open a format request with a sample file, and I reply there whether it can be done. For USD 299 once, through this GitHub Sponsors tier, I add your file format or a missing feature to this extension, with tests, within 7 days.