5 Easy Ways to Edit a Text File From Command Line (Windows)

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Problem Formulation

Given is a text file, say my_file.txt. How to modify its content in your Windows command line working directory?

I’ll start with the most direct method to solve this problem in 90% of cases and give a more “pure” in-terminal method afterward.

Method 1: Using Notepad

The easiest way to edit a text file in the command line (CMD) on your Windows machine is to run the command notepad.exe my_text_file.txt, or simply notepad my_text_file.txt, in your cmd to open the text file with the visual editor Notepad.

notepad.exe my_file.txt

You can also skip the .exe prefix in most cases:

notepad my_text_file.txt

Now, you may ask:

💡 Is Notepad preinstalled in any Windows installation? The answer is: yes! Notepad is a generic text editor to create, open, and read plaintext files and it’s included with all Windows versions.

Here’s how that looks on my Win 10 machine:

When I type in the command notepad.exe my_text_file.txt, CMD starts the Notepad visual editor in a new window.

I can then edit the file and hit CTRL + S to save the new contents.

But what if you cannot open a text editor—e.g. if you’re logged into a remote server via SSH?

Method 2: Pure CMD Approach

If you cannot open Notepad or other visual editors for some reason, a simple way to overwrite a text file with built-in Windows command line tools is the following:

  • Run the command echo 'your new content' > my_file.txt to print the new content using echo and pipe the output into the text file my_text_file.txt using >.
  • Check the new content using the command type my_text_file.txt.
C:\Users\xcent\Desktop>echo 'hello world' > my_file.txt
C:\Users\xcent\Desktop>type my_file.txt
'hello world'

Here’s what this looks like on my Windows machine, where I changed my_file.txt to contain the text 'hello world!':

This is a simple and straightforward approach to small changes. However, if you have a large file and you just want to edit some minor details, this is not the best way.

Method 3: Change File Purely In CMD (Copy Con)

If you need a full-fledged solution to edit potentially large files in your Windows CMD, use this method! 👇

To create a new file in Windows command prompt, enter copy con followed by the target file name (copy con my_file.txt). Then enter the text you want to put in the file. To end and save the file, press Ctrl+Z then Enter or F6 then Enter.

copy con my_file.txt

How this looks on my Win machine:

A couple of notes:

💡 Info: To edit an existing file, display the text by using the type command followed by the file name. Then copy and paste the text into the copy con command to make changes. Be careful not to make any typos, or you’ll have to start over again. Backspace works if you catch the mistake before pressing Enter. Note that this method may not work in PowerShell or other command line interfaces that don’t support this feature.

Method 4: If you SSH’d to a Unix Machine

Of course, if you have logged in a Unix-based machine, you don’t need to install any editor because it comes with powerful integrated editors such as vim or emacs.

One of the following three commands should open your file in a terminal-based editing mode:

vim my_text_file.txt
vi my_text_file.txt
emacs my_text_file.txt

You can learn more about Vim here.

Summary

To edit a file.txt in the command line, use the command notepad file.txt to open a graphical editor on Windows.

If you need a simple file edit in your terminal without a graphical editor and without installation, you can use the command echo 'new content' > file.txt that overwrites the old content in file.txt with new content.

If you need a more direct in-CMD text editor run copy con file.txt to open the file in editing mode.

If you’re SSH’d into a Unix machine, running the Vim console-based editor may be the best idea. Use vim file.txt or vi file.txt to open it.

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👉 Recommended: How to Edit a Text File in PowerShell (Windows)