SnakeTail

SnakeTail is a small software application designed specifically for helping you monitor text log files related to hardware events, security, program, system, and other types of events.

User-friendly layout

The tool reveals a clean and simple layout pointing out to the fact that the accent doesn’t fall upon its looks but rather on its functionality.
It offers support for different viewing modes, such as multi-tabbed interface, cascade windows, or tiled windows (vertical or horizontal).

Event logs

SnakeTail gives you the possibility to monitor several events which are grouped in different categories, such as Application, Hardware Events, Internet Explorer, Key Management Service, Alerts, Security, System, and Windows PowerShell.
What’s more, you are allowed to view information about each log, such as date and time, source, event ID, category, and level, perform search operations, alter the text in terms of font, font style, size and color, change the background color, as well as copy the selected information to the clipboard, so you can easily paste it into other third-party utilities.
Other notable features worth being mentioned enable you to import data from LOG or plain text file, save the current session to XML file format, so you can easily upload it in your future projects, create bookmarks, start or stop the current service, highlight window tabs using icons when file changes are detected, and configure external tools and bind custom shortcut keys.

Performance

Tests have shown that SnakeTail carries out a task quickly and without errors. It doesn’t eat up a lot of CPU and memory, so the overall performance of the computer is not hampered.

Bottom line

To sum things up, SnakeTail mixes up a straightforward approach with several handy features in order to help you monitor Windows event logs, and is suitable for all types of users, regardless of their experience level.