CSV Viewer
Drop a CSV or TSV file (or paste data) to see it as a clean table you can sort, search and filter. The delimiter and header row are detected automatically, large files stay fast, and everything happens in your browser.
Column statistics
How to use the CSV Viewer
- Open your data. Drop a CSV or TSV file on the box, click to choose one, or paste rows into the text area and press View CSV.
- Check the settings. The delimiter and header row are detected for you; change them in the menus if the table looks wrong.
- Sort and filter. Click a column name to sort (click again to reverse), type in the search box, or use the filter row under the headers.
- Review the column stats to see empty cells, unique values and numeric totals for the rows you filtered.
- Export or copy. Press Export CSV to download the filtered and sorted rows, or Copy rows to paste them into Excel or Google Sheets.
CSV format rules in brief (RFC 4180)
CSV has no single official standard, but RFC 4180 describes what almost every program writes and reads. This viewer follows it, and is lenient where real files differ:
- One record per line. Lines may end with CRLF (Windows), LF (macOS/Linux) or a lone CR. Blank lines are ignored.
- Fields are separated by a delimiter, normally a comma. Every record should have the same number of fields; short rows are padded with empty cells.
- Quoted fields are wrapped in double quotes and may contain the delimiter or line breaks:
"Hip belt, rain cover"is one cell. - A quote inside a quoted field is doubled:
"Seam-sealed; ""storm"" hood"becomesSeam-sealed; "storm" hood. - The first line may be a header with column names. Nothing in the file says so, which is why the viewer guesses and lets you override it.
- A UTF-8 byte order mark (bytes EF BB BF) is often added by Excel. It is stripped so the first column name is not corrupted.
Which delimiter does my file use?
| Delimiter | Typical source | Example line |
|---|---|---|
Comma , | Most exports, Google Sheets, US/UK Excel | Ana,Lisbon,31.5 |
Semicolon ; | Excel in countries that use a decimal comma (Germany, France, Brazil…) | Ana;Lisbon;31,5 |
| Tab | TSV files, copying cells from a spreadsheet, database tools | Ana Lisbon 31.5 |
Pipe | | Mainframe, banking and EDI exports, log files | Ana|Lisbon|31.5 |
Auto-detect counts each candidate delimiter on the first 40 lines, ignoring characters inside quotes, and picks the one that gives the most consistent number of columns.
Filter and sort tips
- Numeric filters: in a number column type
>100,<=9.99,=0or!=0. Anything else is treated as "contains" text. - Combine filters: the search box and all column filters apply together, so you can narrow a 100,000-row export to exactly the rows you need, then export only those.
- Three-state sort: the first click sorts ascending, the second descending, the third restores the original file order. The # column always shows the row's original position.
- Spotting dirty data: a column you expect to be numeric that shows Type "Text" in the statistics contains at least one non-number (for example "N/A" or "12 kg"). Filter it with the column box to find the culprits.
- Exported files use commas, RFC 4180 quoting, CRLF line ends and a UTF-8 BOM, so they open correctly in Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice and code.
Frequently asked questions
How do I open a CSV file without Excel?
Drop the file on this page. It is shown as a table straight away, with sorting, searching and filtering, and you do not need Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. The file is read by your browser and is never uploaded.
Why does my CSV show everything in one column?
The file probably uses a different delimiter. European exports often use semicolons because the comma is the decimal separator, and database exports often use tabs or pipes. The viewer detects this automatically, but you can pick the delimiter yourself in the Delimiter menu.
How large a CSV file can I open?
Files with hundreds of thousands of rows work because only one page of rows is drawn at a time. The practical limit is your device's memory: a few hundred megabytes is usually fine on a desktop browser, less on a phone.
How do the column filters work?
Type text to keep rows whose cell contains it (case-insensitive). For numeric columns you can also type a comparison such as >100, <=5 or =0. All filters and the global search are combined, so a row must match every one of them.
Does sorting treat numbers correctly?
Yes. If every non-empty value in a column is a number, the column is sorted numerically, so 9 comes before 10. Text columns are sorted alphabetically with natural number order, and empty cells always go last.
Can it read cells that contain commas or line breaks?
Yes. The parser follows RFC 4180: a field wrapped in double quotes may contain the delimiter, line breaks and doubled quotes ("" stands for one quote). A UTF-8 byte order mark at the start of the file is removed.
Is my data private?
Yes. Parsing, sorting, filtering and exporting all run in your browser with JavaScript. Nothing is sent to a server.