By Manny Fernandez

September 21, 2026

Sublime Text Quick Tip: Highlight Every Line Containing a Specific Character

Say you want to spot every line in a config or log file that contains a #, a !, or any other character. Sublime Text doesn’t ship a dedicated “highlight lines with this character” command, but you get it for free by combining regex search with Find All: since the match itself is the whole line, selecting the match highlights the whole line.

The Core Move

  1. Open the Find panel.
  2. Turn on regular expressions.
  3. Search for ^.*X.*$, swapping X for your character (escape it with a backslash if it’s a regex-special character like ., *, $, or ?).
  4. Click Find All (or use its shortcut) instead of pressing Enter.

Because the regex matches the entire line, not just the character, Find All turns every matching line into a selection, which Sublime highlights edge to edge. Same result you’d get from Cmd/Ctrl-clicking each line by hand, just instant.

Shortcuts by Platform

Action Windows / Linux macOS
Open Find panel Ctrl+F Cmd+F
Toggle regex Alt+R Cmd+Option+R
Find All Alt+Enter Option+Enter

If you’d rather not memorize the regex toggle, just click the .* icon on the right side of the Find bar. It’s identical on both platforms.

Example

To highlight every line containing a #:

^.*#.*$

To highlight every line containing a literal period:

^.*\..*$

Bonus: Make It Stick

A Find All selection disappears the moment you click elsewhere. If you want a marker that survives normal editing, bookmark the selection instead of just leaving it selected:

  1. Do the Find All from above.
  2. Press Ctrl+F2 (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+F2 (macOS).

Every selected line gets a bookmark dot in the gutter, and you can hop between them afterward with F2 / Shift+F2, no regex re-typing needed.

That’s it. Not a plugin, not a setting, just Find All doing double duty as a line highlighter.

Recent posts

  • If you've spent any time configuring user authentication on... Full Story

  • DNS is one of those technologies that quietly underpins... Full Story

  • BGP issues on FortiGate firewalls usually trace back to... Full Story

  • Every time your laptop talks to your router, a... Full Story

  • If you've spent any time configuring NAT on a... Full Story

  • If you have spent any time configuring firewall policies... Full Story

  • High availability on FortiGate is one of those features... Full Story

  • If you've configured SD-WAN on a FortiGate, you've almost... Full Story

  • FortiLink is the management protocol that turns a FortiSwitch... Full Story

  • FortiSwitches are pretty rock solid from Mean Time Between... Full Story

  • This is a quicky tip.  Have you ever gone... Full Story

  • DNS is one of those quiet pieces of internet... Full Story

  • This article is an updated version of the previous... Full Story

  • You will add ns2 as a secondary (slave) BIND9... Full Story

  • In the process of deploying my lab, I needed... Full Story

  • RFC 8805, used to be known as Self-Correcting IP... Full Story

  • Years back, I wrote an article about certificate pinning. ... Full Story

  • FortiGates have the ability to send alerts to Microsoft... Full Story

  • In this post, I am going to walk through... Full Story

  • Troubleshooting VoIP on a FortiGate can feel like trying... Full Story

  • Prior to FortiOS 7.0, there were three commands to... Full Story

  • In this post, I am going to go over... Full Story

  • What we are going to do:  We are going... Full Story

  • Choosing between FGCP (FortiGate Clustering Protocol) and FGSP (FortiGate... Full Story

  • Creating a VLAN on macOS (The "Pro" Move) A... Full Story

  • This blog post explores the logic behind how macOS... Full Story

  • Pretty Fly for a Wi-Fi Tell My Wi-Fi Love... Full Story

  • Part of my daily gig is creating BoMs (Bill-of-Materials)... Full Story

  • ICMP introduces several security risks, but careful filtering, rate... Full Story

  • The command diag debug application dhcps -1 enables full... Full Story

  • In the world of FortiOS, execute tac report is... Full Story

  • LLDP; What is it The Link Layer Discovery Protocol... Full Story

  • What it actually does When you run diagnose fdsm... Full Story

  • Monkey Bites are bite-sized, high-impact security insights designed for... Full Story

  • I have run macOS in macOS with Parallels but... Full Story

  • Don't be confused with my other FortiNAC posts where... Full Story

  • This is the third session in a multi-part article... Full Story

  • Today I was configuring key-based authentication on a FortiGate... Full Story

  • Netcat, often called the "Swiss Army knife" of networking,... Full Story

  • At its core, IEEE 802.1X is a network layer... Full Story

  • In case you did not see the previous FortiNAC... Full Story

  • This is our 5th session where we are going... Full Story

  • Now that we have Wireshark installed and somewhat configured,... Full Story

  • The Philosophy of Packet Analysis Troubleshooting isn't about looking... Full Story

  • Speed Up the Dock via TerminalOpen the Terminal app... Full Story

  • For eight years, MacUpdater was the closest thing macOS... Full Story

  • Say you want to spot every line in a... Full Story