6 Best Large CSV File Editors in 2023

Editing large CSV files can take a toll.

You’re likely to face several problems like delays in export or import, memory constraints, performance issues, or multiple errors in data editing. 

In such cases, specialized CSV file editors work as saviors. They do all the heavy lifting so you can seamlessly handle large files - without any major issues. 

However, with several CSV file editors on the market that claim to handle large CSV files, which one should you choose? 

In this guide, we’ve listed down the six best large CSV editors for you to look at.

Let’s get started.

TL;DR: The 6 best large CSV file editors 

Best CSV File Editors / Key Highlights

1. Gigasheet - 1B rows/sheet, 1GB storage free, AI assistance for editing, data enrichment feature, a variety of data manipulation tools, functions & formulas, advanced data security 
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2. Microsoft Excel - 1M rows/sheet, easy file import, text-to-column feature, built-in tools & functions for editing 
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3. Google Sheets - Thousands of rows/sheets, Google Apps Script  
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4. Apache OpenOffice Calc - 1M rows/sheet, pre-defined templates, a number of filters, and formulas
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5. DbSchema Gigabytes - large file handling, basic editing features
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6. Datablist - Bulk editing option, beginner-friendly, basic editing features
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Let’s dive into each of them one by one.

The top 6 large CSV editors you must check out

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Here are the top six large CSV editors:

1. Gigasheet - Best for extremely large CSV files

Gigasheet can handle massive spreadsheet files. We’re talking about spreadsheet files that are 100+ GBs in size and consist of over one billion rows. 

On the surface, Gigasheet is a  big data spreadsheet. But it’s way more than that. 

The platform provides additional filters and grouping options for efficient data analysis. 

Cherry on the top? You don’t need any tech knowledge or have to be a spreadsheet ninja to use the platform and it's free to signup.

Even if you’re a beginner, its intuitive dashboard will become your ultimate comfort zone. On the flip side, it has also included advanced features for complex data editing, which makes it a go-to choice for seasoned data scientists. 

How Gigasheet stands out as one of the best large CSV file editors

Before you call us biased for putting Gigasheet first, let’s take a look at its functionalities that make editing huge CSV files a breeze:

1. Large CSV file handling

When you have a sheer volume of data to manage, you can’t rely on a general spreadsheet editor. As they aren’t designed to handle large databases, they won’t be able to load the entire datasheet into memory. Worse, these editors will lag or even crash - leading to frustration. 

And that’s where Gigasheet takes center stage. With Gigasheet, you can open CSV files with up to 1B rows. Plus, you’ll also get a flexible storage solution (up to 5TB or beyond). This means, you’re not limited to your computer capacity or speed. You can now easily edit millions of records - just as you work with smaller files. 

2. Easy upload or import option

Where you need to spend hours or even days uploading a large CSV file to other editors, Gigasheet takes just a few seconds. It, in turn, speeds up your editing and analysis process. 

What’s more interesting? You can upload or import files from literally anywhere - from your own device, from cloud apps like Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, or any public URL. 

3. Editing assistance from AI

No doubt, manually handling, aggregating, and editing huge datasets is quite time-consuming. But our AI Sheet assistant will make the process as easy as pie. All you have to do is ask a few questions or give some orders. 

You can ask the AI assistant to perform any task in simple language (the way you interact with your friends!), and it’ll provide the results within the blink of an eye. 

And the best part? It’ll even provide you with techniques it used to come up with the results so you can cross-check those outputs and be confident with your editing. 

For example, let's say you’re editing a huge record of online transactions. To ease the process of editing the datasets, you can ask the AI assistant to “create a new column for the total price by multiplying the quantity with the unit price” or “give the sum of the prices by country.” Within a fraction of a second, it’ll pull off the process - more efficiently. 

4. Data manipulation with a few clicks 

To help you eliminate inconsistencies and errors within the CSV datasets, Gigasheet has come up with a number of data clean-up and manipulation features, formulas, and functionalities. 

These include - finding specific texts & replacing them, removing duplicates, columns splitting and combining, changing data types, whitespace trimming, and changing cases - among others. You can also consolidate numerous files into a single sheet or use VLOOKUP to add columns. 

5. Data enrichment for quality control

Editing isn’t always about trimming, cleaning, or replacing; it’s also about adding additional data to standardize them - Gigasheet knows it really well. 

With its data enrichment features, you can enrich and validate data for each row. For instance, you can add geographical locations for each prospect with its GEO IP lookup, verify email address formats, and access data from well-known data providers like Apollo and Hunter. In fact, you’ll also be able to fetch data from any API - without writing a single line of code. 

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6. Gigasheet automation add-on to eliminate repetitive tasks 

Don’t have enough time to clean and prepare large CSV files? Delegate it to Gigasheet! Its automation add-on will perform all the repetitive tasks like data cleansing, filtering, deduplication, data verification, and quality checks on its own. With it, you can even automate the data-transferring process as well.

And did we tell you that it easily integrates with Zapier, Make, and Pipedream? Meaning, you can now seamlessly manage huge datasets - no matter what app you use.

Here’s what one of our users (on G2) has to say about Gigasheet:

“We were able to load several large CSV files with 10's of millions of rows of data into Gigasheet and almost instantly begin analyzing by grouping, merging the files, and cross-referencing fields. What would have taken hours/days took us only a few minutes.” - Andy S 

2. MS-Excel - Best for editing moderately large CSV files 

Our next pick is MS Excel. 

Using Excel, you can handle CSV files containing thousands or even millions of rows. 

Like Gigasheet, it also has an intuitive and beginner-friendly interface, and offers a variety of functions, formulas, as well as tools to help you edit large datasets. 

However, the platform has its limitations. 

The maximum row limit of Excel is one million. So, if you are looking to edit large CSV files (let’s say a billion rows), Excel is not the right fit for you.

How MS Excel stands out as one of the best large CSV file editors

• It can handle thousands of columns and 1 million rows within a single sheet, making it a good option for moderately large CSV files. 
• It has a simple CSV file-importing process. Also, while transporting, you can specify the delimiters used in the files to separate data fields - which further helps in accurate data transfer. 
• MS Excel offers a wide range of data manipulation tools, functions, and formulas for data filtering, sorting, and data transformation. 
• Its text-to-column feature will help you clean and structure complex CSV data in a more organized way.
• You can use its “Find & Replace” feature for data cleaning.
• It also offers pivot tables for summarizing and reorganizing data.
• You can automate repetitive data processing tasks and apply data validation rules. 

3. Google Sheets - Best for adding custom menus and dialogs 

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‍Google Sheets - another popular name for editing large CSV flies. Though it can’t handle large datasets having billions or millions of rows, but you can easily edit and manage CSV files containing 10 million cells. 

On top of this, you can import CSV files to Google Sheets - with just a few clicks. Like MS-Excel, here also, you can specify delimiters to split data fields while importing them.

Like MS Excel, Google Sheets also has multiple built-in functions, formulas, and features for data cleanup and data transformation. If you’re a bit tech-savvy or know how to code, you can leverage its App Script. It’ll help you add custom menus, dialogs, or sidebars to your sheet - for advanced editing. 

How Google Sheets stands out as one of the best large CSV file editors

• It easily supports CSV files having thousands of rows and columns.
• It has a straightforward file import option.
• You can benefit from the Google Apps Script if you need to add custom menus or dialogs to your file. With it, you can even fetch live data every minute from any external sources. 
• It offers a number of functions and formulas for data manipulation. 
• You can set up data validation rules - to ensure accuracy. 

4. Apache OpenOffice Calc - best for editing CSV files with pre-defined templates

‍Apache OpenOffice Calc is a widely known open-source spreadsheet program that you can consider to edit large CSV files.

Why? Besides supporting CSV datasets of up to 1,048,576 rows, it also offers a comprehensive range of features, like functions and formulas, data validation, data sorting, and data pilot to edit them. These further make it a go-to choice for both beginners and tech-savvy data analysts. 

Apache Calc also provides templates with pre-defined structures and functions - making the editing process way too fast. 

But one problem that might hinder you from efficient file handling is its technical glitches. Sometimes, Calc might not recognize the data formats automatically. In those cases, you need to manually adjust the formats. 

How Apache Calc stands out as one of the best large CSV File editors

• It supports CSV files that have millions of rows.
• Calc offers pre-defined templates to speed up the editing process. 
• You’ll benefit from a number of data editing, filtering, and sorting features.
• It has a wide range of functions & formulas for data transformation. 
• Calc’s advanced DataPilot technology is quite helpful for summarizing and converting meaningful information

5. DbSchema - best for performing light editing tasks 

Although DbSchema isn’t a dedicated CSV file editor, it still provides functionalities to help you edit large CSV files having up to 500 million records. 

In fact, with DbSchema, you can open Gigabytes-large files within minutes. 

Upon opening the file, DbSchema starts detecting the character encoding - to ensure the file has been processed correctly. In addition, it offers multiple filters and sorting features so you can easily edit the file. Once done, you can save the file in a different format. 

No doubt, DbSchema is a great tool to handle large files and perform basic editing tasks, but if you’re looking for some more advanced features, it won’t be the best fit for you. 

How DbSchema stands out as one of the best large CSV File editors

• It can manage CSV files of up to millions of rows. 
• DbSchema provides users with different data sorting and filtering options.
• It has the capability to identify the character encoding of your files automatically.

6. Datablist - best for reconciling data from multiple files 

Last but certainly not least, we have Datablist. With the capability to support 1.5M lines, this editor will help you edit CSV files in an intuitive manner. 

With Datablist, you can remove duplicates, consolidate your data, perform data filtering, cleaning, and more. In fact, it has also launched its own app so you can edit CSV files on the go. 

Like DbSchema, Datablist is surely a great choice as a beginner-friendly CSV editor that can handle large files, but you won’t be able to edit complex datasets - because of its limited features. 

How Datablist stands out as one of the best large CSV File editors

• It automatically detects CSV column delimiters.
• Datablist helps in removing duplicates and data consolidation.
• You can benefit from all the basic editing features like filtering, sorting, adding or removing lines, data cleaning, etc.
• It’ll let you bulk-edit files at once. 
• You can even reconcile your data from multiple files.
• If you are tech-savvy, you can also write code for data manipulation.

Final verdict: Which CSV Editor should you pick? 

And there you go! We’ve given you our top six choices to help you edit large CSV files. 

To find the right fit, you need to consider different factors like their editing features, your budgets, and user-friendliness/

However, we’ll always recommend you to opt for their free version first (if available) - so you can test each of them without spending any money. 

Ohh! We understand it isn’t possible for you to visit each platform and spend hours to get the best out of them. Let us narrow down your choices!

Go for Gigasheet if you need a one-stop solution to edit really huge CSV files with multiple premium features that’ll efficiently pull off the process - without any friction. In fact, it’s appropriate for both beginners and advanced data analysts. 

Choose among MS Excel, Google Sheets, and Apache OpenOffice Calc if you’re looking for familiar interfaces.  

And if you are on the lookout for some beginner-friendly editors, consider DbSchema and Datablist.