About the CSV Viewer
A CSV file is a table saved as plain text: one line per row, with commas (or semicolons) between the cells. Exports from banks, shops, school systems and apps are often CSV. Opened in a text editor it is hard to read, and Excel sometimes puts everything in one column or turns accents into strange characters.
This free CSV viewer shows the file as a clean table. It finds the separator and the encoding for you, so the columns and the letters come out right. Then you can sort by any column, filter the rows and count them — and save the rows you found as a new CSV.
Everything happens in your browser. The file is never uploaded.
Features
- Separator found for you — comma, semicolon, tab or vertical bar (and Excel's "sep=" line)
- Encoding found for you — UTF-8, UTF-16, and old Windows, Japanese, Korean and Chinese code pages; change it if needed
- Sort — click a column name; numbers sort as numbers, not as text
- Filter — type a word and see only the rows that have it, in all columns or one
- Row count — how many rows the file has, and how many match
- Save these rows — the sorted, filtered table as a new CSV (UTF-8, opens right in Excel)
- Copy and print — paste the rows into any spreadsheet, or print them
- Big files — tens of thousands of rows scroll smoothly
Why a CSV looks wrong
Two things break a CSV, and both are invisible in the file itself:
| Problem | What you see | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Wrong separator | All data in one column | The file uses ; and your program expects , (or the other way round) |
| Wrong encoding | "é" instead of "é", "???" instead of 日本 | The file was saved in one character set and read in another |
| Line breaks in a cell | Rows cut in half | A cell in "quotes" holds a new line |
This viewer checks the first rows to find the separator that gives the same number of columns on every line. It reads quoted cells correctly, also when they hold commas or new lines. For the encoding it first looks for a byte order mark, then tests for valid UTF-8, and if the file is not UTF-8 it picks the old code page whose letters look like a real language. When it has to guess, it says so, and you can choose another encoding in the list.
Sorting, filtering and saving
Click a column name once to sort A→Z or small→large, again for Z→A, and a third time to go back to the file's own order. A column where nearly every cell is a number is sorted as numbers, so 9 comes before 10. In a file with a semicolon separator, a comma is read as the decimal mark (1.234,50).
Type in the filter box to keep only the rows that contain your text. Choose a column next to it to search only there. The line above the table shows "Showing 120 of 20,000 rows".
Save these rows gives you exactly what the table shows — the header plus the filtered rows in the sorted order — as a UTF-8 CSV that Excel opens correctly.
Frequently asked questions
How do I open a CSV file without Excel?
Drop it on the box at the top of this page. It opens as a table at once. You do not need Excel or any app.
Why is everything in one column when I open my CSV in Excel?
The file uses a different separator than your Excel expects. In many European countries Excel wants semicolons; in the US and UK it wants commas. This viewer finds the separator by itself. To fix the file for Excel, use Fix CSV for Excel.
The letters look wrong. What can I do?
Choose another Encoding in the list. Western European files are often Windows-1252, Japanese files Shift_JIS, Korean files EUC-KR. The table changes at once.
How big can the CSV be?
Files with hundreds of thousands of rows work on a normal computer, because only the rows on the screen are drawn. Very large files (hundreds of MB) need a lot of memory and may be slow on a phone.
Is my file uploaded?
No. The CSV is read by your browser and never leaves your device.
Related tools
- CSV to Excel — turn the CSV into a real .xlsx workbook
- Fix CSV for Excel — change the separator and encoding so Excel opens it right
- CSV to JSON — the same data as JSON
- Merge CSV Files — join several CSV files into one
- Excel Viewer — open .xlsx and .xls files
How to use it
- Drop your CSV file on the box, or click it to choose the file
- Check the table — if the columns or letters look wrong, change Separator or Encoding
- Click a column name to sort by it
- Type in the filter box to show only the rows you need
- Click a cell to see all of its text
- Click Save these rows (.csv) to download what the table shows, or Copy rows to paste them elsewhere
