.tsv

What is a .tsv file?

TSV is like CSV but uses tabs instead of commas — avoids delimiter conflicts when data contains commas.

Safe format
Type Data
By N/A (open format)
MIME text/tab-separated-values

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What is it

You have a .tsv file — it's CSV's more responsible sibling. Instead of commas, TSV uses tabs to separate columns. This solves the most annoying CSV problem: what happens when your data contains commas. With TSV, commas in data fields are just commas. No quoting gymnastics required.

TSV is the preferred format in bioinformatics, computational linguistics, and any field where data values frequently contain commas, semicolons, or other punctuation. BLAST output, Gene Ontology annotations, and linguistic corpora typically ship as TSV. The format is also what you get when you copy cells from a spreadsheet and paste into a text editor — the clipboard uses tab-delimited format.

Any text editor opens TSV files (the columns won't align perfectly, but the data is readable). Excel and Google Sheets import TSV — in Excel, use File → Open and select the .tsv file, then choose "tab" as the delimiter. LibreOffice Calc handles it automatically. For converting between TSV and CSV, most text editors support find-and-replace of tabs to commas (and vice versa).

Technical details
Full Name
Tab-Separated Values
MIME Type
text/tab-separated-values
Developer
N/A (open format)
Magic Bytes
N/A
Safety
.tsv is a known, safe format.
What opens it
Any text editor
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Microsoft Excel
Subscription All
Google Sheets
FREE Web
FAQ
What's the difference between TSV and CSV?
CSV separates columns with commas. TSV uses tabs. TSV avoids problems when data contains commas (names, addresses, descriptions). Both are plain text and universally supported. TSV is preferred in scientific and bioinformatics contexts.
How do I open a TSV file in Excel?
File → Open, select the .tsv file, and in the import wizard choose 'Tab' as the delimiter. Excel should detect the tab delimiter automatically in most cases. Google Sheets handles TSV import automatically.
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