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I need to view (large) CSV files on my Mac. I could use something like OpenOffice, but unfortunately it's pretty big and slow. I'm wondering if there's a Mac equivalent of some of the Windows tools mentioned on this SU question.
Hay
Posted 2011-02-25T15:00:10.570
Reputation: 723
51
Quick Look the file. There are two methods of doing so.
paragbaxi
Posted 2011-02-25T15:00:10.570
Reputation: 637
This is cool and all, but you can't even select data to copy/paste. – Ezekiel Victor – 2018-03-09T00:48:25.933
2Probably the easiest way of doing this. – John Riselvato – 2012-06-11T02:59:43.790
6also you can select the file and press "spacebar" – GusDeCooL – 2013-06-28T22:14:47.650
Too slow on the latest MBP for CSV files even over a few MB... – Matt – 2013-09-18T05:06:26.213
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Update 7/24/2019
Commenter @Boris Yakubchik points out there's a new CSV app: Tablecruncher - tablecruncher.com . I have not tested it.
Update 4/13/2017
There's a new desktop app for viewing and analyzing CSV files on macOS: Tad.
Update 9/8/2016
There's a new cross-platform desktop app for viewing CSV files: Comma Chameleon.
Original answer
Open Refine weighs in at 50.6 MB, but I don't think that's the 'weight' you're interested in. Anyway I think it's a good tool for any size dataset. They make it faster by paginating the data.
Patrick Berkeley
Posted 2011-02-25T15:00:10.570
Reputation: 311
Google Refine is now archived. Can you suggest alternatives? – Manu Manjunath – 2016-01-14T06:49:54.193
@Manu Google no longer maintains Refine, but it's still available as an open source project: http://openrefine.org
– Patrick Berkeley – 2016-01-14T11:39:04.503Chokes on a 2GB file. – logic-unit – 2016-08-05T13:15:22.747
Doesn't work well. Not intuitive design at all. Very slow. – Vladimir Despotovic – 2016-11-29T23:13:06.040
I tried Comma Chameleon on OS X 10.11 and wasn't impressed. It was buggy (popping up errors every time I resize) and can't reorder columns or search for text, so it didn't meet my needs – stokastic – 2017-01-25T02:25:20.640
Also tried Comma Chameleon, it was actually very slow (slower than MS Excel). – Jay Wong – 2017-03-31T20:25:01.650
Refine chokes on a 5 MB file. Comma Chameleon and Tad work well. Tad has much more features. – Olivier 'Ölbaum' Scherler – 2018-10-04T08:05:46.150
A new super-fast CSV viewer (and editor) is Tablecruncher - https://tablecruncher.com/ ... it can handle files > 2GB
– Boris Yakubchik – 2019-07-24T13:12:47.7771This is the BEST tool to edit/refine/reformat CSV files. Period. – Landitus – 2012-02-04T22:26:12.467
Very good indeed, but that's not what we can call lightweight – lajarre – 2013-01-17T17:26:27.893
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Not sure how light-weight it is, but I found this with a quick Google search: XTabulator 2
XTabulator is a tabular data file editor for Mac OS X. With XTabulator, you can edit, manipulate, > massage, slice, and dice comma-separated (CSV), tab-separated (TAB), or anything-separated files quickly and easily.
Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
Posted 2011-02-25T15:00:10.570
Reputation: 103 763
A note for others: Free version adds a line "Created by XTabulator" in every CSV you edit with it. – Manu Manjunath – 2016-01-14T06:51:26.840
1Adding on my own remark about the slowness of OpenOffice: the new LibreOffice is a lot faster in starting up than the old Oracle version. Still a bit heavy for just viewing CSV files though. – Hay – 2011-02-25T15:19:10.013