CSV Viewer

Common questions

How do I open a CSV file?

Press Open file, drop a file on the panel, or paste CSV text. The file stays on your device and its original disk copy is not changed. There is no imposed file-size cap, but the complete source and parsed table must fit in browser memory. Only visible rows are drawn while scrolling; this is not a streaming reader, and large files can take time or exhaust memory. No particular file size or speed is guaranteed.

What happens to a comma inside a value?

It stays inside the value, because the file is read by the RFC 4180 quoting rules rather than by splitting each line on the delimiter. A value wrapped in double quotes may hold the delimiter, so "Wrench, 8mm" is one cell and the comma is part of the text. A doubled quote inside a quoted value is one quote, so "say ""hi""" reads as say "hi". A line break inside quotes is part of the value and does not start a new row: the table shows it as an arrow so every row keeps one line, and Copy and Download write the break back out unchanged. If a quote is opened and never closed, the rest of the file is read as one cell and the page says so under the table rather than quietly losing the rows.

My file uses semicolons, not commas. Will it still open?

Yes. The delimiter is worked out from the file by counting commas, semicolons, tabs and pipes that sit outside quoted values, which is why a semicolon file full of "one, two, three" notes is still read by its semicolons. The Delimiter control shows what was chosen and lets you override it with comma, semicolon, tab or pipe when the guess is wrong or when you want to see the file read another way. The Header control does the other half: First row treats the top line as the column names, None names the columns by position and reads every line as data.

Why is a row marked with a star?

Because it holds a different number of cells from the header, which is what ragged means, and the mark is there so the row is visible rather than quietly repaired. Hover the star, or read it with a screen reader, to see how many cells it really had, for example 3 of 4. A short row is padded with empty cells so the columns still line up, a long row widens the table and the extra columns are named by position, and in both cases nothing is thrown away. The line under the table counts them: this tool would rather show you a mess in a file than hide it.

Does it run formulas, like a spreadsheet?

No. A cell that begins with an equals sign, for example =SUM(B2:B9), is a piece of text here. It is displayed as written, it is exported as written, and there is no code anywhere in this tool that could evaluate it. That is deliberate: a formula in a CSV is untrusted text from whoever produced the file, and the only safe reading of it is as text. Such cells are counted for you under the table, so you know which values a spreadsheet would have turned into something else. Markup inside a cell gets the same treatment: it is shown as the characters it is made of, never rendered.

How does sorting work, and does it change my file?

Click one column heading to sort ascending, again for descending, and a third time to restore source order. Whole rows move together. Numbers sort by value, so 2 precedes 10, and comma-grouped numbers such as 1,204 are recognized. Text compares lowercase spellings first; original spelling breaks case-only ties. Equal values keep their source order, and blank cells remain last in both directions. This is a single-column sort, without custom date parsing or multiple sort keys. Download writes the new order to a separate file.

What exactly do Copy and Download give me?

Every row in the current filtered result, in the current sort order, including rows outside the visible scroll area. The selected delimiter is kept, records use CRLF, and a header is included when First row is selected. Quotes and embedded line breaks are escaped using CSV rules. Short rows are padded, so exported rows are rectangular; original byte layout and encoding are not preserved. Download writes UTF-8. Formula-like text is exported unchanged: import those columns as text in spreadsheet software if you want them to stay literal.

The accents in my file look wrong. Can I change the encoding?

Yes, with the encoding control at the top of the file panel. Auto follows the byte order mark when there is one, then tests the bytes against UTF-8, and falls back to Windows-1252, which is what a spreadsheet on Windows writes when it is not asked for UTF-8. If the guess is wrong you can force UTF-8, UTF-16 or Windows-1252, and the file you opened is decoded again straight away without reopening it. The panel names the encoding the text was read with.

Is my file uploaded, and is it remembered?

Nothing is uploaded and nothing is sent anywhere: the reading happens in this tab. What you paste or open is kept in this browser alone, along with your delimiter and header choices, so the table is still here when you come back, and, once a draft is saved, Start over above the tool lets you confirm that you want to forget it. One limit is worth knowing: a draft longer than 100,000 characters is read and shown in full but is not written to storage, so a very large file is not kept after you close the tab. If your browser blocks storage entirely, everything on the page still works; nothing is remembered between visits.

How do I filter a CSV file by a column value?

Type in Filter to keep rows containing that text. Choose All columns or one named column beside the filter. Matching ignores letter case and uses a plain substring: Ann also matches Joanna. It does not apply regular expressions, numeric comparisons or AND/OR rules. Clear the filter to show all rows. Download includes every matching row, including those outside the visible scroll area, in the current sort order.

Can I open TSV, semicolon or pipe-separated files?

Yes. Open or paste the text and choose Tab, Semicolon or Pipe in Delimiter if Auto guessed incorrectly. The same table, filter and sort work on those cells. Download keeps the currently selected delimiter; use Spreadsheet Converter to change the output delimiter or export XLSX or PDF.

Can I edit CSV cells or open an Excel workbook here?

You can edit CSV source text in the left pane, but the table cells are read-only. For a grid with editable cells, row and column insertion and simple formulas, open the file in Spreadsheet Editor, which accepts up to 10,000 filled or formatted cells. To read an XLSX workbook, select its sheet in Spreadsheet Converter; this viewer does not unpack Excel files.

Does CSV Viewer work on Mac, Windows, Linux or a phone?

Open this page in a current browser, choose the local file and use the same sort and filter controls. No Excel installation or account is needed. This is a browser page, with no downloadable desktop app, APK, browser extension or command-line program. On a narrow screen, scroll the table horizontally to reach other columns.

Can I graph CSV data or inspect other table formats?

This page displays and filters a text table. To chart simple label/value data, select and copy the two relevant columns from your source, then paste them in Chart Maker; for a Parquet file, use Parquet Viewer; and to turn supported JSON into CSV, start with JSON to CSV. It does not decode proprietary instrument logs, plot waveforms or map geographic coordinates. These tools are linked in Related tools below.