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Everyday CSV editing and cleanup
How to open a CSV file on a Mac
Double-clicking sends it to Numbers or Excel, which can change what you see. Quick Look for a peek, TextEdit for the raw text, and a table of every value exactly as the file has it.
Free ways to view a CSV file on a Mac
Quick Look, Numbers, Excel, TextEdit, the Terminal, online viewers and the dedicated apps, each by what it is good at and where it stops, with a comparison table.
Choosing a CSV editor on a Mac
Numbers and Excel are good up to their documented caps. The desktop utilities, the command-line tools, and the editor for files past all of them.
Edit a CSV without Excel changing the data
Leading zeros, long IDs, and date-shaped text change on import by design. Excel's own Text import holds it back; a direct CSV editor never re-types at all.
Repair a malformed CSV on a Mac
Ragged rows, line breaks inside cells, unpaired quotes, the wrong delimiter. Free tools name the broken line; then the repair itself, step by step.
Validate a CSV before importing it
DuckDB rejects and csvclean find the rows an import refuses. A schema finds the values too, every finding on its cell, with the fix in the same window.
Transform a CSV column without a script
awk, DuckDB and Python change case, trim spaces and reformat dates in a copy. Changing the column in place, with every sample value shown before and after and one undo, is the editor's lane.
Remove duplicate rows from a large CSV
sort -u, awk and DuckDB DISTINCT ON write copies free. Keeping the first, the last or the latest, with the groups reported before any row goes, takes the file itself.
Sort a multi-million-row CSV on a Mac
sort and DuckDB write ordered copies free. Sorting you can see, check, and edit afterward takes a grid with no fixed row limit.
Convert a fixed-width file to CSV
Positions, not delimiters. awk substr, cut -c and a Python slice pull the fields out free. Typing the widths and watching the first line split, with one record type filtered out first, takes Caxton.
CSV too big for Excel on a Mac
Excel stops at 1,048,576 rows on every machine. Splitting, querying with DuckDB, when Google Sheets fits, and opening every row.
When Numbers can't open your file
Apple Numbers holds 1,000,000 rows and 1,000 columns per table. What those limits mean and what opens the file instead.
Large files and logs
How to open a large CSV file on a Mac
Files in the hundreds of megabytes freeze apps that load everything into memory. Streaming tools, SQL without opening, and memory-mapped editing.
Large file text editors on a Mac
Most mainstream editors are not designed around multi-gigabyte files. What EmEditor, VS Code, BBEdit, Hex Fiend, and less were each built for, and what was built for this.
How to open a 10 GB log file on a Mac
less views it instantly and free. Searching millions of matches, filtering the noise, and fixing the file need a memory-mapped editor.
Choosing a log viewer on a Mac
Console for the Mac's own logs, less and lnav free in Terminal, klogg and Whaile as viewers. Moving through a 10 GB log by time and severity, then fixing it, is the editor's lane.
How to filter a large log file on a Mac
grep extracts the error lines free. Iterating on conditions, keeping line numbers, and editing the result take a filter that is a live view.
Jump to a time in a huge log file
awk and sed between two timestamps, lnav's goto. Then Go to Time, the severity gate, bookmarks with notes, and the incident window as its own file.
Find and replace in a huge file on a Mac
sed streams a known substitution to a new file. A million-site rewrite with a preview, honest counts, and one undo step is an editor job.
How to open a SQL dump on a Mac
less and grep read it free; restoring locally answers queries. Editing the dump itself, megabyte-long INSERT lines included, takes a long-line editor.
How to open a large JSON file on a Mac
jq and DuckDB answer questions free. Seeing and editing the raw text, one-line exports included, is a memory-mapped editor job.
Text editing and editor alternatives
Find and replace across many files
grep -r finds, sed -i rewrites with a macOS caveat, VS Code previews. Searching a folder without opening it, with per-file counts first and a .bak beside every changed file, is Find in Files.
Compare two text files on a Mac
diff answers in one line and prints a patch; FileMerge merges, free with Xcode. Two large files side by side, scrolled as one, with a change copied across and a saved report, is Compare.
Fix garbled text and the wrong encoding
é and rows of Рmean the wrong encoding, not damage. file and iconv identify and convert for free; then reading the same bytes the right way.
Open a GB18030, GBK, or Big5 file
Chinese-encoded files turn to mojibake under UTF-8. iconv as the free route, then detection on open, Big5 one menu away, and a save that keeps the encoding.
LF vs CRLF line endings, explained
What LF, CRLF and CR are, how to tell which one a file uses, why mixed endings break git diffs and imports, and the free commands that convert them.
EmEditor for Mac
There is no Mac version; EmEditor is Windows-only. The migration mapping for its huge-file workflow, feature by feature, including the honest gaps.
UltraEdit alternatives for a Mac
UltraEdit runs on macOS with subscription and perpetual options. The native options by the job you are replacing, and the one-time-purchase editors.
Notepad++ for Mac: what to use instead
Notepad++ is Windows-only by its own site. The reimplementation, the native editors, the compatibility layers and what opens the file that stopped it.
Notepad for Mac: what to use instead
TextEdit is already on every Mac. How to make it behave like Notepad, why the Notes app is not the same thing, and what to reach for when a file is too large for it.
File too large for VS Code
VS Code turns off some memory-heavy features for large files. The thresholds depend on the version; this guide covers the documented behavior and what to use instead for large data files.