Open a TSV (tab-separated) file
TSV is CSV’s quieter sibling: same idea, tabs instead of commas. It’s what database dumps, bioinformatics pipelines and “Save as Unicode Text” from Excel produce — and it’s weirdly annoying to open, because double-clicking usually lands it in a text editor where every column is a different width and nothing lines up. Drop it here and it renders as a proper table immediately; the tab delimiter is auto-detected, including for .txt files that are secretly tab-separated.
Everything the CSV viewer does works on TSV too: filters, sort, dedupe, column stats, and export — including converting to comma-CSV or Excel in one step, locally.
Tab-delimited files are auto-detected — this page’s tool is tuned for .tsv and tab .txt.
Drop a CSV, TSV or Excel file here
.csv · .tsv · .txt · .csv.gz · .xlsx — files up to 4 GB open here, in your browser. Nothing is uploaded; the file is read in place on your device.
Filters combine with AND. Use the search box for a quick any-column match. Regex filters use JavaScript syntax.
Untick to hide a column (hidden columns are left out of exports). Type to rename — renames apply to exports too.
Exports include your filters, sort, edits and cleanups. Hidden columns are left out; renamed headers apply. The file is generated on your device — nothing is sent anywhere.
How it works
- Drop the .tsv (or tab-delimited .txt) file.
- Columns split on tabs automatically — no import wizard, no “choose your delimiter” dialog unless detection is unsure.
- Filter, sort, clean or profile as needed.
- Export as TSV again, as comma-CSV for tools that demand it, or as Excel.
Why TSV exists at all
Tabs make a decent delimiter precisely because real-world text rarely contains them — a name like “Smith, John” breaks naïve comma parsing but passes through TSV untouched. That’s why Postgres’ COPY defaults to tab-ish output and why so much scientific tooling emits TSV. The trade-off: tabs are invisible, so a broken TSV is harder to eyeball in a text editor than a broken CSV. A table view (like this one) is the honest way to check one.
One gotcha this page handles for you: Excel’s “Unicode Text (*.txt)” export writes UTF-16 tab-separated files, which many tools read as garbage bytes. Those are detected and converted automatically here.
Good to know
- Pasting cells copied from Excel or Google Sheets works directly — the clipboard format between spreadsheets is TSV.
- A .txt file of unknown provenance? Drop it anyway — the delimiter sniffer checks tabs, commas, semicolons and pipes and picks the consistent one.
- Exporting for Excel? Use the Excel-friendly CSV option (UTF-8 BOM) or the .xlsx export directly.
Frequently asked questions
What’s the difference between TSV and CSV?
Only the delimiter — tabs versus commas. TSV needs less quoting (data rarely contains tabs) but is harder to inspect by eye. Every operation here works identically on both, and converting between them is an export option.
Why does my TSV open as one column in Excel?
Excel splits on your system’s list separator unless the extension is .tsv or you use the import wizard. Renaming the file or importing via Data → From Text/CSV fixes it in Excel — or open it here and export an Excel-friendly file directly.
Can it handle files with mixed delimiters?
The sniffer picks the delimiter that splits rows most consistently. Genuinely mixed files (some rows tabs, some commas) are broken by definition — the row-count and column stats here will at least show you where the damage is.