How to open a CSV file on a Mac
A CSV file is plain text: one row per line, values separated by a comma or a semicolon. Several apps open it. Each has a limit worth knowing before you open a streaming history or a royalty statement.
1. 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, open the Table tab in the Format sidebar and choose Adjust Import Settings: delimiter, text qualifier and text encoding can be changed there, but not after you edit the imported table.1 The limit: a Numbers table stops at 1,000,000 rows, so a longer file doesn’t fit.1
2. TextEdit
Right-click the file, choose Open With, then TextEdit. You see the raw text: every line is a row, and the values are separated by commas or semicolons. Nothing is converted, which is why it is useful for a quick look. It shows no columns, so there is nothing to sort or filter, and a wide or long file is hard to read.
3. Microsoft Excel
Open Excel and use File ▸ Open, or Open With from Finder. A worksheet holds 1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns.2 By default, opening a CSV in Excel removes leading zeros and turns some values into dates or scientific notation; Excel for Mac 16.77 and later let you turn these conversions off in settings.3 If a column of IDs matters, check the setting before you open the file.
4. Tabulay
Tabulay is a native CSV editor for Mac that opens the file as written.
- Right-click the file, choose Open With, then Tabulay. Or use File ▸ Open (⌘O) inside the app.
- Use File ▸ Open with Options (⇧⌘O) to check the delimiter, encoding, header row, decimal separator and date format first, each with a live preview.
- Confirm, and the grid opens. Find, filter, sort, edit and save are free.
There is no million-row ceiling: files up to 2 GB open for editing, and larger files open read-only. Tabulay refuses UTF-16 and UTF-32 files that start with a byte order mark. The app is in English and needs macOS 14 Sonoma or later. See the CSV viewer guide for reading a file without changing it.
Which one to use
For a small file you only want to glance at, TextEdit is enough. For formulas and charts on rows that fit, Numbers or Excel. When the file has more rows than a spreadsheet holds, or when a leading zero or an ID must stay exactly as written, use an editor that doesn’t convert values. More on the trade-offs in Tabulay vs. spreadsheets, and on big files in how to open a large CSV file on Mac.
Related guides
1. Apple: Import an Excel or text file into Numbers on Mac (import steps and 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.
2. Microsoft: Excel specifications and limits.
3. By default. Microsoft: import or export text files, Microsoft: automatic data conversions, Microsoft 365 Insider: control data conversions, version 16.77.
Microsoft Excel is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Numbers is a trademark of Apple Inc. Tabulay is not affiliated with Apple or Microsoft.