Hedit

(pronounced H-edit)

Fast and intuitive hosts file management. The modern hosts file editor for people who care about their tools.

✨ Features

This application is available on macOS and Linux. Windows support is planned for future releases.

• Intuitive UI: Clean and user-friendly interface for easy hosts file management with Light & Dark mode.
• Fast & Secure: Built with modern tech for performance and system-level access and Open-source codebase.
• Multiple Files: Manage multiple files and activate the one you need.
• Remote Files: Add and Sync remote hosts files locally (like StevenBlack/hosts, etc.) from a URL.
• Combo Files: Create combo files by including dynamically other local files or remote URL's.
• Auto Sync: Enable automatic remote file synchronization so remote files are always up to date.
• Run in background: Allow Hedit to run in the background (system tray) so Auto Sync can operate continuously.
• Syntax highlighting: Edit your hosts file with syntax highlighting and validation.

📖 Syntax

Hedit supports standard hosts file entries and two directives for combining local and remote files.

Hosts entries

Each entry must contain a valid IPv4 or IPv6 address followed by one hostname. You can also use blank lines, full-line comments, and inline comments.

# Local development
127.0.0.1 app.local
127.0.0.1 api.app.local # Optional inline comment
::1 ipv6.app.local

Hedit validates entries before activation and rejects invalid addresses, invalid hostnames, multiple hostnames on the same line, and duplicate custom hostnames.

Combo files

Combo files let you build one hosts file from other files managed by Hedit and from remote sources. Add each directive on its own line; Hedit expands them in order when the combo file is activated.

Include another Hedit file

@local(550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000)

Right-click the file in the sidebar, select Copy ID, and use that ID inside @local(...).

Include a remote hosts file

@remote(https://example.com/hosts.txt)

Remote URLs must use HTTPS and return a text/plain response. Included files should contain standard hosts entries; directives are not expanded recursively.

Complete example

# Project-specific entries
127.0.0.1 app.local
127.0.0.1 api.app.local

# Include another file managed by Hedit
@local(550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000)

# Include a remote blocklist
@remote(https://example.com/hosts.txt)

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These people help make it happen. You can become a sponsor to support Hedit. Thanks for your support! 🫶🏻

⚠️ Known issue

Permission denied when saving on macOS

On some macOS systems, activating a file may fail with a permission error when Hedit tries to write to /etc/hosts. Follow the investigation in issue #30.

You can change the file's permissions to let your user edit it without sudo. I would recommend to do quick search before if you want to go that route, just do it knowing the tradeoffs.