Hexel Editor

Native macOS hex editor with a brain for file formats

56 followers

Native macOS hex editor with a brain for file formats

56 followers

A native macOS hex editor for developers, reverse engineers and security researchers. Open files of any size instantly, decode the bytes under your cursor, parse Mach-O/ELF/PE/PNG/ZIP structure, run checksums and entropy, bookmark what matters

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Launch tags:Mac•Productivity•Developer Tools

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Hexel Editor

Maker

📌

Hey Product Hunt 👋 I'm Shaun, and I built Hexel Editor because every time I needed to look at raw bytes on my Mac I ended up in something that felt like it was ported from 2003 — or in a terminal, squinting at xxd output. Hexel Editor is a native macOS hex editor that looks and behaves like a Mac app. An Xcode-style document window: navigator on the left, a precise hex grid in the middle, a live inspector on the right. What it does: • Opens anything, instantly. Large files are memory-mapped, so a multi-GB binary opens as fast as a 2 KB one and stays responsive while you scroll. • Tells you what the bytes mean. The inspector decodes Int/UInt 8–64, Float32/64, binary, hex and strings at the cursor, little- or big-endian, toggled instantly. • Understands real file formats. Built-in parsers for Mach-O, PE, ELF, PNG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, ZIP, gzip and PDF. Click a parsed field and it jumps straight to those bytes. • Finds anything. Hex pattern search with ?? wildcards for don't-care bytes, text search in UTF-8/UTF-16 LE/BE/ASCII, and Go-to-Offset in hex, octal or decimal. • Analyzes. CRC32, MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, plus entropy and a byte-frequency histogram over a selection or the whole file. • Annotates. Named, colored bookmarks and plain-text notes on any byte range, exportable as .hexel files so you can share your findings. • Edits safely. Insert/overwrite/delete, read-only mode, unlimited undo, and atomic saves that won't corrupt the file. And it's private by design: no network access, no analytics, no tracking. Your files never leave your Mac. I'd love to hear what formats you'd want parsers for next — that's the roadmap I most want your input on. Happy to answer anything in the comments today.

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3mo ago

BetterClaw

A hex editor that actually understands what it’s looking at feels like a huge upgrade. Great to see more developer-focused tools getting smarter.

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3mo ago

Hexel Editor

Maker

@better_shaya Thanks! Honestly that's the whole reason it exists. Got sick of having a format spec open in one window and counting bytes in another.

More parsers coming, and eventually I want people to be able to define their own so you're not waiting on me for the weird stuff. What are you working with?

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3mo ago

Hey Shaun, there's something very satisfying about cracking a file open and watching the raw bytes actually make sense, all of it staying right here on my own machine.

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3mo ago

Reviews

Hexel Editor

Maker

📌

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3mo ago

BetterClaw

A hex editor that actually understands what it’s looking at feels like a huge upgrade. Great to see more developer-focused tools getting smarter.

Report

3mo ago

Hexel Editor

Maker

@better_shaya Thanks! Honestly that's the whole reason it exists. Got sick of having a format spec open in one window and counting bytes in another.

More parsers coming, and eventually I want people to be able to define their own so you're not waiting on me for the weird stuff. What are you working with?

Report

3mo ago

Hey Shaun, there's something very satisfying about cracking a file open and watching the raw bytes actually make sense, all of it staying right here on my own machine.

Report

3mo ago