Exporting your file
Save what you are looking at, with all filters, sorting, and masking applied, as a new file in the format you need.
Export what you see
You can save your current view as a new file. Press Cmd+E (Ctrl+E on Windows and Linux), click the Export CSV button in the toolbar, or choose File > Export > CSV. This saves everything exactly as you see it.
Every filter, sort, mask, and edit you have applied is saved as a new CSV file. Your original file remains completely untouched. This helps you safely create new datasets without breaking your original data.
Other formats
You might need to share your data with systems that do not accept CSV files. You can export to other formats from the arrow next to the toolbar button, or from File > Export.
- Excel (.xlsx) (Pro): Creates a proper Excel workbook. Any colours you added come with it as real cell fills. If your file has more than 1,048,576 rows, BigXL automatically splits it. It creates multiple sheets within the same workbook. Each sheet includes repeated header rows.
- TSV (every edition): Tab-separated values. This is useful for systems that expect tabs instead of commas.
- Parquet (Pro): A compressed columnar format used in data engineering. It is much smaller and faster to read than CSV for very large files.
- JSON (Pro): Exports the data as a JSON file. CSV, TSV, Parquet and JSON hold data only, so colours are not carried.
Splitting into chunks
Sometimes you need to break a massive file into smaller pieces. Choose File > Export > CSV in chunks and enter how many rows each file should hold.
Before it runs, the dialog tells you what you will get, for example ‘This view has 4,000,000 rows, so you get 4 files.’ Each file takes the name you choose with _part1, _part2 and so on appended, so a file saved as orders.csv produces orders_part1.csv through orders_part4.csv. Note that no file called orders.csv is created when the export splits.
Every part gets its own header row. This is the step hand-rolled split commands usually leave out. Chunking is useful when the output has to fit inside Excel’s row limit, or when a system only accepts files under a certain size.
Splitting into one file per value
Chunking splits by row count. When you need to split by content, such as one file per region, per client or per cost centre, select the column first and then choose File > Export > One file per <column>. The menu item names whichever column you have selected.
Splitting by value is a Pro feature. You choose a destination folder and BigXL writes one file per distinct value, each with its own header row, named after the value. Splitting a region column produces North.csv, South.csv and so on.
Three behaviours worth knowing:
- Blank values are not dropped. Rows whose value is empty are written to
blank.csv. Rows disappearing silently would be the worst outcome here. - Filters are respected. The split covers what is on screen. Filter to one quarter first and only that quarter is written.
- There is a limit of 500 files. Splitting by an identifier column is almost always a misclick, so BigXL refuses above that, tells you the count it found, and writes nothing.
A value that cannot be used as a filename, such as one containing a slash, is made safe. Two values that reduce to the same filename are given distinct names rather than one overwriting the other.
Saving a sample of the rows
Choose File > Export > A sample of the rows when someone needs a representative extract rather than the whole file, such as a colleague testing an import. Like plain CSV export, sampling is available in every edition, including the free one.
The sample is spread across the entire file rather than taken from the top, so it is not simply the earliest rows. It is also repeatable: generating a sample of the same size from the same view produces the same rows every time, so ‘the sample’ means one specific thing.
Like every other export, a sample respects the filters and masking currently applied, so you can mask personal columns first and sample from the masked view.
Masking travels with the export
Data privacy is important when sharing files. If you have masked any columns through the Redaction wizard or manually, the masked version is what gets exported. The original unmasked values are never written to the exported file.
BigXL also helps prevent accidental data leaks. If it notices a column that still looks like personal data at export time, it stops to warn you before writing the file. It looks for emails, phone numbers, and IDs.
Exporting from panels
You can also export data directly from specific panels in BigXL.
- SQL query results: Export these directly from the SQL panel. You can save them as CSV, TSV, JSON, or Parquet.
- Pivot table results: Export these as CSV or Excel straight from the Pivot panel.
- Charts: Export your visual data as PNG or SVG images from the Chart panel.