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How To Start Logging With NLog

Logging .NET NLog
Jenda Tovarys
Updated on January 21, 2026

NLog is a logging framework for .NET. It has rich log routing and management capabilities and greatly helps you to produce and manage logs. NLog supports structured logs, multiple logging targets, and everything a modern logging framework should support. In the long list of the NLog's features, you can find:

NLog is useful in the simplest small applications as well as in large and complex ones. Due to its rich configuration abilities, you can use it in all your projects.

In the tutorial you will learn how to:

  • Create a Console Application project in Visual Studio.
  • Install NLog and its dependencies.
  • Create and configure the NLog logger.
  • Integrate the logger into the C# Console Application.

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Prerequisites

You will need:

  • Windows 10 installed.
  • Visual Studio installed.

Step 1 — Creating a Project

To get started, you need to create a new project. You can do it in several ways in Visual Studio. The first one is to select Create a new project in Visual Studio start window.

If the Visual Studio IDE is already open, you can follow the path on the top menu bar *File > New > Project *and create a new project this way.

The last way we are going to show you is to use the shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + N.

Step 2 — Installing Dependencies

Before starting to work on the application, you need to install some dependency packages. Visual Studio provides multiple ways to use the NuGet Package Manager. In the tutorial we will use the Package Manager Console.

The first thing you have to do is to open the Package Manager Console. You can do it using Tools > NuGet Package Manager > Package Manager Console. Alternatively, you can sequentially press ALT, V, E, and O.

In the console that opens, run the following commands one by one.

 
Install-Package NLog.Extensions.Logging

The NLog.Extensions.Logging package is the root package of NLog.

Step 3 — Creating a Logger

For the application, we are going to use the simplest way to create a logger in NLog — the LogManager class. It provides the GetCurrentClassLogger method to get a unique logger per each class. Unlike the globally configured logger, the logger per class helps you to easily capture the source of the log message.

The logger will use NLog's default log levels system. The system consists of the following 6 levels:

  • Fatal — used for reporting about errors that are forcing shutdown of the application.
  • Error — used for logging serious problems occurring during execution of the program.
  • Warn  — used for reporting non-critical unusual behaviour.
  • Info — used for informative messages highlighting the progress of the application for sysadmins and end users.
  • Debug — used for debugging messages with extended information about application processing.
  • Trace — the noisiest level, used for tracing the code

Let's start coding. Your Program.cs file should look like the code snippet below.

 
Program.cs
using NLog;
using System;

namespace NLogAdvanced
{
    class Program
    {
        // create a static logger field
        private static Logger logger = LogManager.GetCurrentClassLogger();

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {

        }
    }
}

Step 4 — Configuring the Logger

NLog has rich configuration abilities and provides two ways to configure the logger: programmatically or via a configuration file. You can get advanced information about each of them in the documentation.

In this tutorial we're going to configure the logger using the nlog.config file.

The first thing we need to do is to create a nlog.config file in the root of the application. You can do it by pressing CRTL + SHIFT + A and entering the nlog.config name in the opened window.

Then, you have to set the file's Copy to Output Directory property to Copy always. It can be done by right-clicking the file in the solution explorer and selecting the Properties option.

The config file must look like that:

 
nlog.config
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<!-- XSD manual extracted from package NLog.Schema: https://www.nuget.org/packages/NLog.Schema-->
<nlog xmlns="http://www.nlog-project.org/schemas/NLog.xsd" xsi:schemaLocation="NLog NLog.xsd"
      xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
      autoReload="true"
      internalLogFile="c:\\logs\\console-example-internal.log"
      internalLogLevel="Info">
</nlog>

Now, let's write a config. The config is written in the XML language. If you are not familiar with the XML language, you may dive in the great XML tutorial by w3school.

In our case the config consists of two parts: setting up the logging targets and setting up the logging rules.

We've decided to add 3 logging targets for the application: the colorized console and 2 files. In the config file, each of them will be represented by a separate XML element. Let's write the targets in the nlog.config file.

 
nlog.config
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<!-- XSD manual extracted from package NLog.Schema: https://www.nuget.org/packages/NLog.Schema-->
<nlog xmlns="http://www.nlog-project.org/schemas/NLog.xsd" xsi:schemaLocation="NLog NLog.xsd"
      xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
      autoReload="true"
      internalLogFile="c:\\logs\\console-example-internal.log"
      internalLogLevel="Info">

  <!-- the targets to write to -->
  <targets>
    <!-- write logs to the files -->
    <target xsi:type="File" name="all_logs_file" fileName="c:\\logs\\all.log"/>
    <target xsi:type="File" name="important_logs_file" fileName="c:\\logs\\important.log"/>
    <!-- write logs to the console-->
    <target xsi:type="ColoredConsole" name="logconsole" />
  </targets>
</nlog>

After that, we can create the rules. In NLog, each rule can be applied to multiple loggers and targets and must be written as a separate XML element.

The first rule enforces all loggers to write all logs generated by the application to the colorized console.

The second rule enforces all loggers to write logs with debug and higher severity logs to the target named all_logs_file.

The third rule enforces all loggers to write warnings and higher severity logs to the target named important_logs_file.

 
nlog.config
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<!-- XSD manual extracted from package NLog.Schema: https://www.nuget.org/packages/NLog.Schema-->
<nlog xmlns="http://www.nlog-project.org/schemas/NLog.xsd" xsi:schemaLocation="NLog NLog.xsd"
      xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
      autoReload="true"
      internalLogFile="c:\\logs\\console-example-internal.log"
      internalLogLevel="Info">

  <!-- the targets to write to -->
  <targets>
    <!-- write logs to the files -->
    <target xsi:type="File" name="all_logs_file" fileName="c:\\logs\\all.log"/>
    <target xsi:type="File" name="important_logs_file" fileName="c:\\logs\\important.log"/>
    <!-- write logs to the console-->
    <target xsi:type="ColoredConsole" name="logconsole" />
  </targets>

  <!-- rules to map from logger name to target -->
  <rules>
    <logger name="*" minlevel="Trace" writeTo="logconsole" />
    <logger name="*" minlevel="Debug" writeTo="all_logs_file" />
    <logger name="*" minlevel="Warn" writeTo="important_logs_file" />
  </rules>
</nlog>

Step 5 — Creating Extra Classes

We're going to use 2 extra classes. To create a new file for a class, you can press CRTL + SHIFT + A and select C# class in the window that opens.

The first file will contain a Person class. You can see its code in the snippet below.

 
Person.cs
using System;
using NLog;

namespace NLogAdvanced
{
    class Person
    {
        // create a static logger field
        private static Logger logger = LogManager.GetCurrentClassLogger();

        public string Name { get; set; }
        public string LastName { get; set; }

        public Person(string name, string lastName)
        {

            Name = name;
            LastName = lastName;

            logger.Info("Created a person {@person} at {now}", this, DateTime.Now);
        }
    }
}

The second file will contain a Car class. You can see its code in the snippet below.

 
Car.cs
using System;
using NLog;

namespace NLogAdvanced
{
    class Car
    {
        // create a static logger field
        private static Logger logger = LogManager.GetCurrentClassLogger();

        public string Model { get; set; }
        public int YearReleased { get; set; }
        public Person Owner { get; set; }

        public Car(string model, int yearReleased, Person owner)
        {
            Model = model;
            YearReleased = yearReleased;
            Owner = owner;

            logger.Debug("Created a car {@car} at {now}", this, DateTime.Now);
        }
    }
}

With @ — destructuring operator we can break objects down into properties with values.

Step 6 — Logging

To demonstrate how the logger works, we will log some simple messages, at least one of each level. It's a pretty straightforward task, because of the clear NLog API.

More specifically, NLog logger provides 6 methods for logging: Trace, Debug, Info, Warn, Error, and Fatal.

 
Program.cs
using NLog;
using System;

namespace NLogAdvanced
{
    class Program
    {
        // create a static logger field
        private static Logger logger = LogManager.GetCurrentClassLogger();

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // create 2 persons
            var person1 = new Person("Jonh", "Gold");
            var person2 = new Person("James", "Miller");
            // create 2 cars
            var car1 = new Car("Tesla Model S", 2020, person1);
            var car2 = new Car("Tesla Model X", 2020, person2);
            // logging
            logger.Trace("Some verbose log");
            logger.Debug("Some debug log");
            logger.Info("Person1: {@person}", person1);
            logger.Info("Car2: {@car}", car2);
            logger.Warn("Warning accrued at {now}", DateTime.Now);
            logger.Error("Error accrued at {now}", DateTime.Now);
            logger.Fatal("Serious problem with car {@car} accrued at {now}", car1, DateTime.Now);
        }
    }
}

Now, let's build and run the program. You can simply do this by pressing CTRL + F5.

After the execution, your console's output should look like:

 
Output
2021-05-27 00:17:51.1315|INFO|NLogAdvanced.Person|Created a person {"Name":"Jonh", "LastName":"Gold"} at 5/27/2021 12:17:51 AM
2021-05-27 00:17:51.5391|INFO|NLogAdvanced.Person|Created a person {"Name":"James", "LastName":"Miller"} at 5/27/2021 12:17:51 AM
2021-05-27 00:17:51.9188|DEBUG|NLogAdvanced.Car|Created a car {"Model":"Tesla Model S", "YearReleased":2020, "Owner":{"Name":"Jonh", "LastName":"Gold"}} at 5/27/2021 12:17:51 AM
2021-05-27 00:17:51.9433|DEBUG|NLogAdvanced.Car|Created a car {"Model":"Tesla Model X", "YearReleased":2020, "Owner":{"Name":"James", "LastName":"Miller"}} at 5/27/2021 12:17:51 AM
2021-05-27 00:17:51.9645|TRACE|NLogAdvanced.Program|Some verbose log
2021-05-27 00:17:51.9809|DEBUG|NLogAdvanced.Program|Some debug log
2021-05-27 00:17:51.9809|INFO|NLogAdvanced.Program|Person1: {"Name":"Jonh", "LastName":"Gold"}
2021-05-27 00:17:51.9809|INFO|NLogAdvanced.Program|Car2: {"Model":"Tesla Model X", "YearReleased":2020, "Owner":{"Name":"James", "LastName":"Miller"}}
2021-05-27 00:17:52.0096|WARN|NLogAdvanced.Program|Warning accrued at 5/27/2021 12:17:51 AM
2021-05-27 00:17:52.0493|ERROR|NLogAdvanced.Program|Error accrued at 5/27/2021 12:17:52 AM
2021-05-27 00:17:52.0781|FATAL|NLogAdvanced.Program|Serious problem with car {"Model":"Tesla Model S", "YearReleased":2020, "Owner":{"Name":"Jonh", "LastName":"Gold"}} accrued at 5/27/2021 12:17:52 AM

Now, let's check the logs written in the files. The files are located in the C:\\logs.

The first, check your important.json file, it should look like.

 
Output
2021-05-27 00:17:52.0096|WARN|NLogAdvanced.Program|Warning accrued at 5/27/2021 12:17:51 AM
2021-05-27 00:17:52.0493|ERROR|NLogAdvanced.Program|Error accrued at 5/27/2021 12:17:52 AM
2021-05-27 00:17:52.0781|FATAL|NLogAdvanced.Program|Serious problem with car {"Model":"Tesla Model S", "YearReleased":2020, "Owner":{"Name":"Jonh", "LastName":"Gold"}} accrued at 5/27/2021 12:17:52 AM0

The second, check your all.json file, it should look like.

 
Output
2021-05-27 00:17:51.1315|INFO|NLogAdvanced.Person|Created a person {"Name":"Jonh", "LastName":"Gold"} at 5/27/2021 12:17:51 AM
2021-05-27 00:17:51.5391|INFO|NLogAdvanced.Person|Created a person {"Name":"James", "LastName":"Miller"} at 5/27/2021 12:17:51 AM
2021-05-27 00:17:51.9188|DEBUG|NLogAdvanced.Car|Created a car {"Model":"Tesla Model S", "YearReleased":2020, "Owner":{"Name":"Jonh", "LastName":"Gold"}} at 5/27/2021 12:17:51 AM
2021-05-27 00:17:51.9433|DEBUG|NLogAdvanced.Car|Created a car {"Model":"Tesla Model X", "YearReleased":2020, "Owner":{"Name":"James", "LastName":"Miller"}} at 5/27/2021 12:17:51 AM
2021-05-27 00:17:51.9809|DEBUG|NLogAdvanced.Program|Some debug log
2021-05-27 00:17:51.9809|INFO|NLogAdvanced.Program|Person1: {"Name":"Jonh", "LastName":"Gold"}
2021-05-27 00:17:51.9809|INFO|NLogAdvanced.Program|Car2: {"Model":"Tesla Model X", "YearReleased":2020, "Owner":{"Name":"James", "LastName":"Miller"}}
2021-05-27 00:17:52.0096|WARN|NLogAdvanced.Program|Warning accrued at 5/27/2021 12:17:51 AM
2021-05-27 00:17:52.0493|ERROR|NLogAdvanced.Program|Error accrued at 5/27/2021 12:17:52 AM
2021-05-27 00:17:52.0781|FATAL|NLogAdvanced.Program|Serious problem with car {"Model":"Tesla Model S", "YearReleased":2020, "Owner":{"Name":"Jonh", "LastName":"Gold"}} accrued at 5/27/2021 12:17:52 AM

Side note: Visualize your .NET logs in dashboards

Better Stack transforms your NLog data into interactive dashboards that reveal patterns, track error rates, and help you spot issues before they escalate.

Conclusion

Proper logging can greatly assist in the support and development of your application. This may seem like a daunting task, but NLog is a fast and configurable logging framework that greatly simplifies the task.

In the tutorial, you have configured your logging system with multiple logging targets for a .NET console application with NLog.

Now developing and maintaining your .NET applications will be much easier!

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