JSON file often only in 1 line. To remove first n character: sed -i.bak -r '1s/^.{10}//' file https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26400118/delete-first-n-characters-of-a-very-large-file-in-unix-shell See first 50 bytes of file: head -c 50 file See last 50 bytes: tail -c 50 file remove last n character sed '$ s/.$//' somefile # slow and not work, don't know why truncate -s-1 file # super fast https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27305177/how-can-i-remove-the-last-character-of-a-file-in-unix I use git-bash windows 10, JSON ab 3GB Why not sed The problem with a sed solution like sed '$ s/.$//' file is that it reads the whole file first (taking a long time with large files), then you need a temporary file (of the same size as the original): One more time my psychological knowledge suck. The "right" answer here is not marked right, OK but it seem better.
Some tribes of the programmer clan.