A fast, navigable tree viewer for large XML and JSON files in VS Code.
VS Code's built-in formatter starts to struggle with large XML and JSON files — syntax highlighting breaks down, scrolling becomes sluggish, and the sheer volume of markup makes it hard to find what you need. XML Deep View renders your file as a collapsible tree that stays fast and readable no matter the size.
Features
- Collapsible tree view — nodes collapse by default so you see the full structure at a glance; expand only what you need
- Color-coded display — tags, attributes, and JSON value types each have distinct colors for quick scanning
- Inline search — highlights all matches across the tree, navigate with Prev / Next, and ancestor nodes auto-expand to show context; counter shows true total match count even when the display cap is reached
- Scoped search — right-click any node and choose Scope search here to restrict search to that node's subtree; a dismissible badge in the search bar shows the active scope and the number of nodes within it
- Tag and attribute filtering — hide noisy tags via the context menu or the top-tag frequency badges; hidden tags are shown as removable chips
- File stats panel — file size, node count, max depth, unique tags, top-10 tag frequency (XML), and type distribution (JSON)
- Large file support — handles files that break VS Code's standard formatter; warns at 5 MB, gracefully blocks above 10 MB
- XML and JSON — unified interface for both formats
Usage
Right-click a file in Explorer:
Right-click any .xml or .json file → Open in XML Deep View
From the editor toolbar:
Open a .xml or .json file and click the Open in XML Deep View button in the editor title bar.
From the Command Palette:
Ctrl+Shift+P → XML Deep View: Open Current File
Coming Soon
- Expand / collapse individual subtrees by depth
- Click a node to jump to its line in the source file
- Copy a node or subtree as formatted text
- Support for additional file types (
.xaml,.config,.svg, and more) - Increased file size ceiling with streaming / chunked parsing
- YAML support
Feedback & Issues
Found a bug or have a feature request? Open an issue at github.com/stoutalligator/xml-deep-view — contributions welcome.
MIT License