Convert TSV to JSON
Your TSV goes in and a JSON comes out. TSV is the same idea as CSV with tabs between the columns instead of commas. The practical difference is that the result opens anywhere, which TSV files do not. Your file never leaves your computer.
Need the other direction? Convert JSON to TSV
How to convert TSV to JSON
- 1 Drop your TSV .tsv or .tab file onto the page, or click to browse for it.
- 2 Check the options. Nothing is thrown away on the way to JSON, 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 JSON, or add more files and do the whole set in one go.
Why convert TSV to JSON
- A TSV will not open in a browser, so anything going onto a web page, into a document or into a message has to become a JSON first.
- Parsed natively by browsers and by every server language without a library.
- Human readable, so a malformed payload can be debugged by eye.
- Exporting records from a database or admin tool.
- TSV: fields containing a tab cannot be represented at all in most dialects.
TSV compared with JSON
How the two formats differ on the things that decide whether a conversion is worth making.
| Property | TSV | JSON |
|---|---|---|
| File extension | .tsv | .json |
| Colour depth | Tab-delimited UTF-8 text, usually without quoting rules | UTF-8 text, six value types, no comments or trailing commas |
| Browser support | No browser support | Every browser |
| Introduced | 1993 | 2001 |
| Developed by | IANA registration by Paul Lindner | Douglas Crockford |
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: JSON stores the data without compression, so expect a much larger file.
- One JSON limitation to keep in mind: verbose compared to binary formats, with keys repeated on every record.
Questions about TSV to JSON
Is my TSV file uploaded anywhere?
No. The whole thing runs inside the browser tab you already have open. Your TSV is read straight from your own disk, converted on your machine and handed back as a JSON. 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 TSV files at once?
Yes. Add as many as you like and they are processed one after another, then offered as separate JSON 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.