papagal · a data viewer for macOS · v1.0.22 · Apple Silicon & Intel · macOS 13+

Opens anything
with rows in it

pa·pa·gal noun

/pa-pa-GAL/ · from Bulgarian папагал

1.A parrot.
2.A small, very fast Mac app that opens databases and data files and shows them as a grid you can scroll, filter, sort, query and export. SQLite, Parquet, Excel, CSV, JSON, SQL dumps. No server, no setup, no Electron.

see also: Quick Look, SQL console, Metal GPU grid

Pro · $15 once

free: forever, up to 1,000 rows per page
pro: $15 one time, 3 Macs, no subscription
file: Papagal.dmg · 25 MB · macOS 13 Ventura or later

Papagal showing a 5,000,000-row Parquet file of taxi trips in its data grid — fig. 1 — a 5,000,000-row Parquet file (114 MB). First 100,000 rows on screen in under half a second.A1:N5000000

02formats

Seven kinds of file.
Zero import wizards.

Double-click a file, drag it on the Dock icon, or press Space in Finder for a Quick Look preview.

#	extension	format	opens as	worth knowing
1	.sqlite .db .sqlite3	SQLite	every table and view	Edit cells in place; changes write straight to the file.
2	.parquet	Apache Parquet	the file, queried in place	Multi-million-row files open instantly. Nothing is loaded into memory.
3	.xlsx .xls	Excel	one table per sheet	Dates show as dates. Legacy .xls from 1997 works too.
4	.csv .tsv	Delimited text	one table	Comma, semicolon, tab or pipe. UTF-8, UTF-16, Windows-1252.
5	.json	JSON	an array of objects	Nested values stay JSON. Wrapper objects are kept on save.
6	.jsonl .ndjson	JSON Lines	one row per line	Hundreds of thousands of lines, parsed on every core.
7	.sql	SQL script	the tables it creates	SQLite scripts, plus MySQL and PostgreSQL dumps (COPY included).

7 rows · sorted by how often people ask

03features

Small app.
Unreasonably quick.

A1selected

Actually native

Swift and AppKit, with a grid drawn by Metal. No Chromium, no Node, no web view pretending to be an app. It opens like Preview does.

B1selected

Big files are fine

Parquet is queried in place, so a 5,000,000-row file opens straight away. CSV and JSON stream in on every core instead of freezing the window.

C1selected

Filter the whole table

Stack conditions per column (contains, =, >, starts with, is empty…) and they run in the database, so counts, pages and exports all agree.

D1selected

Columns your way

Drag a separator to resize, double-click it to fit, hide the columns you don’t care about. Papagal remembers the layout per file.

A2selected

SQL when you want it

A console for real SQL on any file, even a CSV. Your LIMIT stays your LIMIT, PRAGMA works, errors say what went wrong.

B2selected

Edit and save

Pro: double-click a cell, type, ⌘S. Only the cells you touched change on disk, down to the original number formatting.

C2selected

Export anything

Pro: whole tables to CSV, TSV, JSON, Markdown or SQL INSERT, streamed to disk with a progress bar and a cancel button.

D2selected

Every Mac since 2017-ish

One universal app for Apple Silicon and Intel, macOS 13 Ventura or later, including Intel and AMD graphics.

Papagal's SQL console running a query on a Parquet file — fig. 2 — the SQL console, querying a Parquet file. 100 rows in 133 ms.
Same grid, same filters, any file. Multiple tabs and query history in Pro.

04pricing

Free to look.
$15 to touch.

Viewing is free, forever, no account. Pro is for when you want to change things, go big, or get data out. One payment. No subscription, no seat math.

Free$0 · forever

The whole viewer: every format, schema, search, filters, column tools and the SQL console, up to 1,000 rows per page. Good for poking at files, which is most of what people do.

Papagal Pro

receipt · papagal.dev · merchant: Polar

Pro license × 115.00

Macs3

Rows per page100,000

Subscriptionnone

Renewsnever

Refund14 days

TOTAL USD15.00

paid once · tax handled by Polar

Buy Pro

THANK YOU · COME AGAIN

	free	pro · $15 once
Open all 7 formats, schema, search	yes	yes
Filter, sort, resize and hide columns	yes	yes
Rows per page	1,000	100,000
Metal GPU grid	—	yes
Edit cells and save to the file (⌘S)	—	yes
Export to CSV, TSV, JSON, Markdown, SQL	—	yes
SQL console	1 tab	tabs + history
Macs	as many as you like	3 per license
Your data leaves your Mac	never	never

05privacy

privacy

Four network calls,
none of them your data

Files: Parsed and queried on your Mac. Never uploaded, never cached anywhere else.
Telemetry: None. No analytics SDK, no crash uploader, no usage pings.
Network: Only two calls, ever: checking your Pro license with Polar, and checking for updates.
Sandbox: The Quick Look preview runs sandboxed and read-only.

Read the security write-up · privacy policy

06questions

answers

The seven things
people ask

▸Which files does it open?

SQLite (.sqlite, .db, .sqlite3), Parquet, Excel (.xlsx and old .xls), CSV and TSV (comma, semicolon, tab or pipe), JSON, JSON Lines, and .sql files, including MySQL and PostgreSQL dumps.

▸Is it really native, or a web app in a trench coat?

Native. Swift and AppKit, with the grid rendered by Metal. There’s no Chromium or Node inside, which is why it starts like a system app and stays small.

▸Which Macs does it run on?

Any Mac with macOS 13 Ventura or later, Apple Silicon or Intel. The Metal grid supports Apple, Intel and AMD graphics, and falls back to the standard grid on Macs without Metal.

▸What’s the catch with the free version?

There isn’t one. Free is the full viewer with 1,000 rows per page. Pro ($15, once) adds 100,000-row pages, the Metal grid, editing and saving, exports, and SQL tabs with history, on up to 3 Macs.

▸Is my data private?

Yes. Everything is parsed and queried on your Mac. The app never uploads files and has no analytics. The only network calls are the license check and update check. Details in the security write-up.

▸How do licenses work?

You buy Pro through Polar and get a key by email. Paste it into Papagal on up to 3 Macs. It keeps working offline, and you can free a Mac from Settings or from the Polar customer portal. Not happy? Refund within 14 days.

▸Can it edit my files?

With Pro, yes: SQLite, CSV, TSV and JSON can be edited and saved. Only the cells you changed are rewritten. Excel and Parquet are read-only, and MySQL or PostgreSQL dumps are shown converted, so saving those is refused rather than risking your file.

07contact

contact

Write to me

A file that won’t open, a format you want, a license question. I read every one of these myself, usually the same day.

help@papagal.dev

Opens anythingwith rows in it

Seven kinds of file.Zero import wizards.

Small app.Unreasonably quick.