Tail multiple log files
tail

tail can tail multiple files. Donovan Bray's article explains more, tail: can tail multiple files simultaneously, who knew? and other tail tricks.

To tail multiple files, pass in a file pattern:

tail -f Log-*


multitail

You can ask multitail to combine the output of multiple files. The examples page contains a useful approaches and tricks.

This command combines and tails two logs:

multitail /var/log/apache/access.log -I /var/log/apache/error.log


If you need to tail any logs in a folder, including those actively being created, use the -q flag:

multitail -q 'test*'


This will tail any files matching the pattern test*, including those that appear after the command has been issued. Thanks to @folkert-van-heusden for this suggestion and code fix.

If you have homebrew installed, you can install multitail using the Terminal.app command:

brew install multitail


See also:


How-To: Tail Multiple Files With Multitail
Is there any Mac text editor with tail or watch files change feature?