Light CSV View & Edit
A minimal, fast Excel-like grid for viewing and lightly editing .csv and .tsv
files in VS Code — an alternative to heavier tools like Data Wrangler for people who
just want to see their data in cells, search it, and filter it. Lightweight in size
and dependencies (no runtime dependencies at all), but seamless to use for viewing
and editing CSVs day to day.
Features
- Grid view — opens
.csv/.tsv files as a virtualized, spreadsheet-like table
that stays smooth on large files, with a sticky header row and row-number gutter.
- Intuitive search & highlighting — a single search box finds matches and
highlights them live as you type, with a match counter and prev/next navigation
(
Cmd/Ctrl+F inside the grid). Toggle plain-text vs. regex and case
sensitivity independently.
- Filter, on text, numbers, or regex — flip the same search box to Filter mode
to show only matching rows. Click a column header to scope search/filter to just
that column, which also unlocks numeric comparisons — type
>50, >=50,
<10, <=10, !=0, or =7 to filter a numeric column directly, no formula
needed.
- Sort — with a column selected, sort ascending or descending (numeric-aware,
falls back to alphabetical). Sorting is a view-only order — it never rewrites
your file.
- Resize, reorder, and delete columns — drag a column edge to widen or narrow
it (up to 2000px, for those wide text fields), drag a header to reorder columns,
or right-click a header/row for delete.
Cmd/Ctrl+Backspace deletes the
currently focused row.
- Light editing — double-click (or
F2) any cell, including headers, to edit
it in place. All edits go through VS Code's normal save/undo/redo — Cmd/Ctrl+Z
reverts, Cmd/Ctrl+S saves — so there's no separate save format or lock-in.
- Robust CSV parsing — automatic delimiter detection (
, ; tab |),
correct handling of quoted fields, embedded commas/newlines, and stray unescaped
quotes in messy real-world exports, so a single malformed value doesn't corrupt
the rest of the file.
- Theme-aware — matches your light/dark/high-contrast VS Code theme
automatically, no configuration needed.
Files over 200,000 rows open in read-only mode to keep memory bounded.
Install
From the VS Code Marketplace: search for "Light CSV View & Edit" in the
Extensions view, or install directly from
the Marketplace listing.
From a .vsix file (e.g. for a remote-SSH host, or before a new version
reaches the Marketplace): download the .vsix attached to a
GitHub Release, then:
- In VS Code, open the Extensions view (
Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+X).
- Click the
··· menu at the top of the Extensions view → Install from VSIX...
- Select the downloaded file.
- Reload the window if prompted (
Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+P → Developer: Reload Window).
Or, from a terminal, with the file downloaded and the code command on your PATH:
code --install-extension ~/Downloads/lightweight-csv-viewer-x.y.z.vsix
To update to a newer release later, repeat the same steps with the new .vsix —
it will overwrite the previous version.
Usage
Open any .csv or .tsv file — it opens in the grid by default. To edit the raw
text instead, right-click the file (or use the editor tab context menu) and choose
Reopen Editor With → Text Editor.
Development
npm install
npm run watch # esbuild in watch mode
Press F5 in VS Code (with this folder open) to launch an Extension Development
Host with the extension loaded.
npm test # parser unit tests
