CSV Viewer
Or paste below. Files are read locally and never uploaded.
- 3
- Columns
- 3
- Data rows
- 3
- Showing
| name | role | joined |
|---|---|---|
| Amara | Engineer | 2021 |
| Caleb | Designer, Senior | 2023 |
| Delphine | Analyst | 2019 |
The CSV viewer renders a delimited file as a table you can filter, without opening a spreadsheet. It uses the same RFC 4180 parser as the CSV converters, so quoted fields containing commas and newlines display in the right cells rather than shifting every column after them.
How it works
Files are read locally with the browser file API, which is the practical reason to use this rather than a spreadsheet for a file you would rather not upload or that a spreadsheet would mangle.
- Quoted fields keep their commas and line breaks intact.
- Rows with a different column count from the header are reported rather than silently misaligned.
- The filter matches any cell in a row, case-insensitively.
- The first 500 matching rows are rendered, since a browser table of tens of thousands of rows becomes unusable.
Nothing is converted or reformatted. Values are shown exactly as they appear in the file, which is the point. A spreadsheet will helpfully turn 007 into 7 and a date-like string into a date, and this will not.
Examples
A quoted field with a comma
Row
Caleb,"Designer, Senior",2023
Result
Three cells, with "Designer, Senior" intact in the second
A split on commas produces four cells and pushes 2023 into a fourth column that does not exist in the header.
A ragged file
File
Rows with 3, 2 and 4 columns
Result
Flagged: rows have different column counts (2, 3, 4)
Usually a delimiter appearing inside an unquoted field. The warning points at the file rather than leaving you to spot the misalignment.
Frequently asked questions
Why not just open the file in Excel?
Because Excel changes data on the way in. Leading zeros are stripped from product codes, values that look like dates are converted, and long numbers become scientific notation. This shows the file exactly as written, which is what you want when checking what is actually in it.
Does the CSV leave my machine?
No. It is read with the browser file API and parsed locally. That matters because CSV exports are so often customer data, and uploading one to an unknown web tool is a real disclosure.
Why are only 500 rows shown?
Because a browser table with tens of thousands of rows becomes unresponsive to scroll and filter. The full file is parsed and counted. The limit is on rendering, and filtering narrows the set before the limit applies.
Can I edit the data?
No, it is read-only. Editing would need change tracking and a way to write the file back, which is a spreadsheet rather than a viewer.