diff --git a/python/obitools3/utils.pyx b/python/obitools3/utils.pyx
index 45fafdb..28ef89a 100755
--- a/python/obitools3/utils.pyx
+++ b/python/obitools3/utils.pyx
@@ -72,6 +72,8 @@ cpdef int count_entries(file, bytes format):
                 return -1
             mmapped_file = mmap.mmap(f.fileno(), 0, access=mmap.ACCESS_READ)
             total_count += len(re.findall(sep, mmapped_file))
+            if format != b"ngsfilter" and format != b"tabular":
+                total_count += 1 # adding +1 for 1st entry because separators include \n (ngsfilter and tabular already count one more because of last \n)
             
     except:
         if len(files) > 1: