View a CSV file online.
Choose a CSV and see it as a tidy, scrollable table, with no spreadsheet software needed. The file never leaves your machine.
- 10MBa CSV, read on your machine
- 0 bytesof your file sent anywhere
- Freeno account, nothing to install
Loading the tool…
What you see
Your CSV opens as a table on this page.
Pick the file and it appears under the button as rows and columns, with the header row on top. Comma, semicolon and tab separated files are detected, and a quoted field with commas inside it stays in one cell.
- The first 500 rows, under the header
- Files up to 10MB
- Nothing uploaded and nothing stored
How it works
Read a CSV in three steps.
Choose the file
Tap Choose a CSV file and pick a .csv or .tsv up to 10MB. A larger file is refused with a message rather than freezing the tab.
Read the table
The first row becomes the header, with up to 500 rows under it. A note above says how many rows the file holds in all.
Close the tab
The table closes with the tab. No copy was ever made, so there's nothing to delete.
Sharing it
When someone else needs the data.
This page can't give the file an address. Uploading it can, and the link opens the same table in the recipient's browser.
A link that opens as a table
Upload the CSV and it gets a short nudgehost.com link that shows the same table for files up to 10MB. Apps that show link previews display a card with the file name.
See whether it's been opened
Free accounts see how many times a link was opened. Pro and Studio add the time and country of each open, with a CSV export.
Add a password or an end date
Give the link a date and it stops working after it. On Pro and Studio, a password keeps the data closed to anyone without it.
Viewer or link
What this page does, and what a link adds.
| This viewer | A NudgeHost link | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the file is | On your computer | On NudgeHost, at its own address |
| Who can open it | You, in this tab | Anyone you send the link to |
| Account needed | None | None. Without one, the link lasts 7 days |
| Largest CSV | 10MB | 25MB free, 250MB on Pro, 1GB on Studio |
| Rows shown | The first 500 | The first 500, with the whole file one download away |
| Over the viewing limit | Refused, with a message | Above 10MB, the download card instead of the table |
| Preview card in chat apps | Not included | A card with the file name |
| Open tracking | Not included | Counts free, time and country on Pro and Studio |
| Password | Not included | Pro and Studio |
| Price | Free | Free to start, Pro is $12 a month |
A free account holds 10 links at once, with no end date unless you set one.
Reading CSVs
Why open a CSV this way.
A CSV is plain text, so opening one in a text editor gives you a wall of commas. A viewer parses it into rows and columns you can actually read. This page does that inside your browser, without an upload and without an account.
Reading a file and sharing it are different jobs, and this page only does the first. When the data has to reach someone else, put the file on NudgeHost as a link and they open the same table in their browser. A workbook with several sheets or formulas keeps them all when you send the .xlsx itself as a download.
Some data is nested rather than flat. The JSON viewer draws it as a tree, in the same local way. Hosting on the free plan keeps 10 links live at once, with no end date.
Guides
When the data has to go somewhere.
Frequently asked questions
Does my file get uploaded?
No. The file you choose is read in your browser with FileReader and parsed there, so it never leaves your machine. Nothing is sent to NudgeHost or anywhere else, no copy is stored, and the page works with the network disconnected once it has loaded.
How big a CSV can I open?
Up to 10MB, with the first 500 rows shown. Parsing runs on the same thread as the page, so the cap is what keeps a large file from freezing the tab rather than an arbitrary limit. Bigger CSVs are refused with a message rather than attempted.
Why only the first 500 rows?
Rendering every row of a large export would put hundreds of thousands of cells in the page and make it crawl. Five hundred is enough to see the columns, spot the shape of the data, and check an export came out right, which is what people open a CSV viewer for.
Does it handle different delimiters?
Yes. Comma, semicolon, and tab-separated files are all detected, and quoted fields with embedded commas parse correctly.
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Related tools
Other things you can do on NudgeHost.
Ready to view your file online?
Free forever, no credit card needed. The whole thing takes a few seconds.