How to split large text file in windows?

If you have installed Git for Windows, you should have Git Bash installed, since that comes with Git.

Use the split command in Git Bash to split a file:

  • into files of size 500MB each: split myLargeFile.txt -b 500m
  • into files with 10000 lines each: split myLargeFile.txt -l 10000

Tips:

  • If you don’t have Git/Git Bash, download at https://git-scm.com/download
  • If you lost the shortcut to Git Bash, you can run it using C:\Program Files\Git\git-bash.exe

That’s it!


I always like examples though…

Example:

You can see in this image that the files generated by split are named xaaxabxac, etc.

These names are made up of a prefix and a suffix, which you can specify. Since I didn’t specify what I want the prefix or suffix to look like, the prefix defaulted to x, and the suffix defaulted to a two-character alphabetical enumeration.

Another Example:

This example demonstrates

  • using a filename prefix of MySlice (instead of the default x),
  • the -d flag for using numerical suffixes (instead of aaabac, etc…),
  • and the option -a 5 to tell it I want the suffixes to be 5 digits long:

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