CSV Desk
Open the CSV that Excel and Numbers give up on. Sort it, filter it, fix a few cells, and see what is actually in each column. Nothing is uploaded, and the file you opened is never overwritten.
The export is 2 GB and nothing will open it
Excel stops at 1,048,576 rows. It loads that many, warns you that the file was not loaded completely, and leaves you working on a slice. Numbers has a similar ceiling and slows down long before it. A database export, a log dump or an analytics download goes past both.
The usual next step is the terminal, or splitting the file into pieces, or uploading it to a converter. Uploading is often the part you cannot do, because the file belongs to a client or an employer.
CSV Desk streams the file into a local database on your Mac. Rows are read from disk as you scroll, so memory stays flat and the size of the file stops mattering. The largest one tested so far is 5 GB.
What it does
- Opens the file in seconds. Multi-gigabyte CSVs, millions of rows, smooth scrolling. The data lives in SQLite on disk rather than in memory.
- Checks the file before it loads. The import preview samples the first 100 rows and detects the delimiter, the encoding and whether row one is a header. Anything it gets wrong you can change in the same panel.
- Skips the junk at the top. Exports from analytics tools often start with a block of metadata and a blank line before the real header. That block is detected and skipped, and the row count is yours to override.
- Sorts, filters and finds. Click a header to sort. Type in the box under a header to filter. Find and replace runs across the whole file, not the visible part.
- Edits cells with 50 levels of undo.
- Reads comma, tab, semicolon and pipe, plus a separator you type yourself, in UTF-8, UTF-8 with BOM, Latin-1 or Windows-1252.
It tells you what is in the file
A wide CSV is intimidating before it is useful. Forty columns of unfamiliar names, and no idea which ones are empty.
The Column Explorer lists every column with its type and how complete it is, then distinct counts, ranges and the most common values for the one you pick. Select a block of cells and the status bar shows the count, sum, average, minimum and maximum for them.
Someone who is not technical tried an early version and described it as a bridge between a spreadsheet and a database. That is the part worth keeping. You get the answers a database would give you without learning to ask for them.
Ask for the rows you want
Type a condition and the matching rows stay. country = 'Chile' works as typed, on any supported Mac. With Apple Intelligence you can write the same request as a sentence and it is turned into the condition for you, which is shown to you before it runs.
Your data comes out the way it went in
- Values are never coerced. Leading zeros survive. A 16-digit account number does not become
1.23457E+15. Dates keep the format they were written in. - Export round-trips the file. Delimiter, quoting, encoding and line endings match what you imported, and you can export the filtered view instead of everything.
- The source file is read-only. The first save opens a panel and asks where to write. Nothing overwrites your original unless you pick it.
Nothing leaves your Mac
The app is sandboxed and has no network access, incoming or outgoing. There is no server, no account, no sign-in and no licence check. Apple Intelligence, where it is used, runs on the device.
Requirements
| macOS | 12 Monterey or later |
|---|---|
| Hardware | Apple silicon and Intel |
| Formats in | CSV and delimited text: comma, tab, semicolon, pipe, custom |
| Encodings | UTF-8, UTF-8 with BOM, Latin-1, Windows-1252 |
| Formats out | CSV, and Markdown for the summary |
| Largest file tested | 5 GB |
| Written summary and plain English filters | Apple Intelligence, macOS 26 |
| Price | One-time purchase, no subscription |
Guides
- How to Open a Large CSV File on a Mac Five ways to open a multi-gigabyte CSV on macOS when Excel and Numbers refuse, and what each one costs you in time, money and privacy.
- When a CSV Is Too Big for Excel Excel's limit is 1,048,576 rows. What the warning means, how to tell how many rows you actually have, and what to do about the ones Excel dropped.
- A CSV Editor for the Mac What separates a CSV editor from a spreadsheet, which options exist on macOS, and the four things worth checking before you trust one with a data file.
- Excel Keeps Changing My CSV Data Leading zeros disappear, long numbers turn into 1.23457E+15 and codes become dates. Why a spreadsheet does this, and how to open the file without it happening.
- What Is a CSV File? The format in plain terms: rows, delimiters, quoting, encodings, and why the same file looks different depending on what opens it.