Various methods and systems for monitoring files in a computer system are provided. In this regard, aspects of the invention facilitate file monitoring without file handle use, as it pertains to file monitoring and tailing, thereby mitigating file handle locking conflicts. In various implementations, information for the monitored files is obtained from the kernel using a filter driver in the I/O path. When the filter driver detects write operations being performed on monitored files, file-write data is copied and placed in a kernel buffer, where it can be pulled by a user mode monitoring process and fed to a monitoring application. As such, there is no need for coordination between the monitoring process and the user mode processes of other third-party applications writing data to monitored files.