A CSV viewer for Mac that shows the file as written
Sometimes you only need to read a CSV file: scroll it, sort a column, filter to a few rows, and close it with the file untouched. Tabulay does that for free, on files from a few lines to millions of rows.
What a viewer should show
The file, as the file wrote it. Tabulay draws each value exactly as stored: a 16-digit ID, a value with a leading zero or a track code that looks like a date stays text unless the column really holds numbers or dates. Every column gets a type proposed from a sample and checked on every row. Values that don’t fit the type are counted, for example “12 bad”, never silently converted. Opening a file changes nothing, and nothing is written back unless you save.
Open a CSV from Finder
- Right-click the file in Finder, choose Open With, then Tabulay. Or start Tabulay and use File ▸ Open (⌘O).
- For a file you know little about, use File ▸ Open with Options (⇧⌘O). It shows the delimiter, encoding, header row, decimal separator and date format Tabulay detected, each with a live preview, before a row opens.
- Confirm, and the grid opens.
Find, filter and sort
Find a value, filter a column with chips, or click ↕ in a column header to sort. These are all free. Sorting and filtering change what you see, not the file on disk. Semicolon-separated files and decimal-comma amounts are read as they are; see numbers written with a decimal comma.
Large files
The grid has no million-row ceiling. The limit is in bytes: files up to 2 GB open for editing, and larger files open read-only, so you can look through them without any risk of writing them back half done. Tabulay memory-maps the file and indexes it in one pass instead of loading it into a grid. On a 207 MB, 1.3-million-row CSV file, indexing takes 0.35 s.1 More in how to open a large CSV file on Mac.
Limits
Tabulay refuses UTF-16 and UTF-32 files that start with a byte order mark, instead of showing them wrongly. Files over 2 GB are read-only. The app is in English. It needs macOS 14 Sonoma or later.
Download
Viewing, finding, filtering, sorting, editing and saving are free. Tabulay Pro, a monthly subscription with an eligible 14-day introductory free trial, then automatic renewal unless cancelled, adds column insights, SQL queries and the other features listed on the tech specs page.
Related guides
1. Measured on a 207 MB, 1.3-million-row CSV file with a release build of Tabulay’s core engine, on a MacBook Pro, Apple M4 Max, 36 GB, September 2026. Actual times vary with the file and the Mac.