.tsv File Extension

What kind of file is a .tsv?

A .tsv file is a plain-text table whose fields are separated by horizontal tab characters. Each line represents one record. The IANA registration specifies a header row, the same number of fields in every record, and the text/tab-separated-values MIME type.¹

TSV has no distinctive magic bytes. To verify one, inspect the text for tabs, consistent field counts, sensible line endings, and the expected character encoding. A filename alone is not enough.

How do I open a .tsv on my computer?

Open TSV data in Microsoft Excel, Apple Numbers, LibreOffice Calc, a database tool, or a text editor:

• On Windows, Excel can import a delimited text file and lets you choose the delimiter and column data formats.²
• On macOS, Numbers can import delimited text and lets you adjust separator and encoding settings when needed.³
• On Linux, LibreOffice Calc provides a text-import dialog. Command-line tools and programming languages are also useful for large datasets.
• On iPhone, iPad, and Android, spreadsheet apps can import many TSV files, while a text editor can show the raw tabs and lines.

Check identifiers, dates, and long numbers during import. Spreadsheet software may remove leading zeroes, round large integers, or reinterpret date-like text.

Poly support for .tsv

Poly indexes readable TSV content for exact and semantic search. You can find a file by a header, a value, or the subject of the dataset. Poly also offers a spreadsheet-oriented preview on a best-effort basis and preserves the original for download.

The Poly agent can inspect headers, rows, and values as text. TSV does not store durable cell types, formulas, units, or relationships, so include a data dictionary when column meaning matters.

History of .tsv

Tab-delimited text grew as a simple interchange format among databases, spreadsheets, and mail-merge tools. Paul Lindner of the University of Minnesota Internet Gopher Team registered text/tab-separated-values with IANA in 1993.⁴ The registration remains the format's main specification.

Its rules are deliberately small. Literal tabs are not allowed inside fields, records occupy single lines, and the first line contains field names.¹ In practice, some producers omit the header or use their own escaping convention, so confirm expectations before exchanging data.

Working with .tsv and alternatives

Choose the format that matches the structure you need:

When converting a workbook to TSV, expect only a flat text table. Microsoft notes that formatting and other spreadsheet features are lost when a worksheet is saved as tab-delimited text.⁵

Treat untrusted TSV exports carefully. Spreadsheet applications may interpret values beginning with formula-triggering characters as formulas. Review or sanitize such cells before opening the file in a spreadsheet, and retain the original dataset until the conversion has been checked.⁶