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Numbers and CSV: export a table, or open a CSV, on Mac

Numbers writes CSV files and reads them. This guide covers both directions, what Apple documents for each, and what to do when a CSV has more rows than a Numbers table holds.

Export a Numbers table to CSV

  1. Open the spreadsheet in Numbers and choose File ▸ Export To ▸ CSV.
  2. Choose whether to create a file for each table or to combine the tables into a single file. To include table names, select the “Include table names” checkbox.
  3. To change the text encoding, click the disclosure arrow next to Advanced Options.
  4. Click Save, type a name without the .csv extension (it is added for you), choose a location with the Where pop-up menu and click Export.

Apple describes the result as cell contents shown as values separated by commas. The export is a copy: changes you make to the exported file don’t affect the original spreadsheet.1 Numbers also exports tab-separated (TSV) files from the same menu.

Open a CSV in Numbers

Drag the file to the Numbers icon in the Dock or in the Applications folder. If the table doesn’t look right, click the table, choose Adjust Import Settings in the Table tab of the Format sidebar, and set the delimiter, text qualifier or text encoding. You can’t adjust the import settings after you edit the imported table.2 A Numbers table holds up to 1,000,000 rows and 1,000 columns.2

When the CSV has more than 1,000,000 rows

A streaming history or a royalty statement can run past a million rows. Numbers can’t hold the rest of the file. Tabulay, a native CSV editor for Mac, opens it as written: there is no million-row ceiling, files up to 2 GB open for editing, and larger files open read-only. Open it with File ▸ Open (⌘O), or File ▸ Open with Options (⇧⌘O) to check the delimiter and encoding first. Finding, filtering, sorting, editing and saving are free.

See how to open a large CSV file on Mac and how to open a CSV file on a Mac for the other options. Tabulay refuses UTF-16 and UTF-32 files that start with a byte order mark, and the app is in English.

Check an export before you send it

Open the file you exported in Tabulay to see it the way the next reader will: the delimiter, the encoding and every value as written. For semicolons and decimal commas, see decimal-comma amounts in CSV exports.

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1. Apple: Export to other file formats in Numbers on Mac.

2. Apple: Import an Excel or text file into Numbers on Mac (import settings). Numbers: tested on 06/10/2026 with Numbers 14.1 on macOS 27. A CSV with 1,000,050 data rows opened as a table of 1,000,000 rows, header included, and the rest was not imported; a CSV with 1,100 columns opened with 1,000.

Numbers is a trademark of Apple Inc. Tabulay is not affiliated with Apple.