Turn JSON files into TSV
Your JSON goes in and a TSV comes out. TSV is the same idea as CSV with tabs between the columns instead of commas. Worth knowing: a TSV will not open in a browser tab, so it is a file for software rather than for the web. Your file never leaves your computer.
Need the other direction? Convert TSV to JSON
How to convert JSON to TSV
- 1 Drop your JSON .json file onto the page, or click to browse for it.
- 2 Check the options. Nothing is thrown away on the way to TSV, so there is no quality dial to set.
- 3 Convert. The work happens on your own machine, so how long it takes depends on your computer and the file.
- 4 Download the TSV, or add more files and do the whole set in one go.
Why convert JSON to TSV
- No confusion about quotes, so every line splits cleanly.
- Clipboard transfer between spreadsheets uses tabs, so it round trips cleanly.
- Bioinformatics and genomics pipelines, where TSV is the working format.
- JSON: verbose compared to binary formats, with keys repeated on every record.
JSON compared with TSV
How the two formats differ on the things that decide whether a conversion is worth making.
| Property | JSON | TSV |
|---|---|---|
| File extension | .json | .tsv |
| Colour depth | UTF-8 text, six value types, no comments or trailing commas | Tab-delimited UTF-8 text, usually without quoting rules |
| Browser support | Every browser | No browser support |
| Introduced | 2001 | 1993 |
| Developed by | Douglas Crockford | IANA registration by Paul Lindner |
Quality and what changes
Both sides are lossless, so every pixel survives the trip intact and converting back returns the same image. What changes is the size and what the file can carry: TSV stores the data without compression, so expect a much larger file.
- Browsers will not display a TSV, so it downloads rather than opening in a tab.
- One TSV limitation to keep in mind: less widely offered as an export option than CSV.
Questions about JSON to TSV
Can I open a TSV in a browser?
No. No mainstream browser renders TSV natively, so it will download rather than display. That is fine when the file is heading into desktop software or an archive, and a problem if it is going on a web page.
Is my JSON file uploaded anywhere?
No. The whole thing runs inside the browser tab you already have open. Your JSON is read straight from your own disk, converted on your machine and handed back as a TSV. Nothing is sent anywhere, nothing is stored and there is no account.
Is there a file size limit?
There is no server-side limit because no server sees the file. The real ceiling is your device memory, since the input and the output both have to fit in the tab. A few hundred megabytes is usually fine on a desktop machine and considerably less on a phone.
Can I convert several JSON files at once?
Yes. Add as many as you like and they are processed one after another, then offered as separate TSV downloads or as a single ZIP. Speed depends on your own processor rather than on a queue.
Does the converter work offline?
Yes, after the page has loaded once. The engine is cached by the browser, so you can disconnect, reload and keep converting. That falls out of doing the work locally rather than being a separate mode you switch on.