Embodiments of the invention provide a method, system and computer program product for selectable data on file viewing in a debugger. A method includes specifying a file in a user interface of a debugger executing in memory of a computer and debugging a target application and determining whether to view data in the file from a perspective of the computer or the target application. The method additionally includes loading the data in the file directly from the computer externally to the target application in response to determining to view the data in the file from the perspective of the computer, but otherwise loading the data through operations performed by the debugger on behalf of the target application in response to determining to view the data in the file from the perspective of the target application. Finally, the method includes displaying the loaded data in a file viewer of the user interface of the debugger.