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Supported Formats

Rowbase supports importing data from:
FormatExtensionsNotes
CSV.csvComma-separated values
Excel.xlsx, .xlsSpreadsheet files
JSON.jsonArray of objects
Maximum file size: 10MB per file.

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Importing CSV Files

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Via Upload

  1. Navigate to your project
  2. Click Upload or drag and drop your file
  3. Review the import preview
  4. Configure options
  5. Click Import

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Import Options

First row is header (default: enabled)When enabled, the first row is used as column names. Disable for data without headers.
Auto-detected, but can be overridden:
  • Comma (,)
  • Tab (\t)
  • Semicolon (;)
  • Pipe (|)
  • Custom character
Usually auto-detected. Options include:
  • UTF-8 (default)
  • UTF-16
  • ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1)
  • Windows-1252
Character used to wrap values containing delimiters:
  • Double quote (") - default
  • Single quote (')
  • None

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Type Detection

Rowbase automatically detects column types by analyzing your data:

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Detection Rules

Detected AsExample Values
Number42, 3.14, -100, 1,234.56
Booleantrue, false, yes, no, 1, 0
Date2024-01-15, 01/15/2024, Jan 15, 2024
TextEverything else

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Overriding Types

If auto-detection isn’t correct:
  1. Click the column header in the preview
  2. Select the correct type
  3. Review any conversion warnings
For columns with mixed types (e.g., “N/A” mixed with numbers), choose the primary type. Invalid values become null.

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Tips for Large Files

If your file exceeds 10MB:
  1. Remove unnecessary columns before import
  2. Split into multiple files if data is logically separable
  3. Use Excel format which is often more compact than CSV

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Excel Import

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Importing Excel Files

  1. Upload your .xlsx or .xls file
  2. Select which sheet to import (or import all)
  3. Configure the data range (optional)
  4. Review and import

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Excel-Specific Options

  • Sheet selection - Import one or all sheets
  • Range selection - Specify a cell range (e.g., A1:D100)
  • Skip rows - Ignore header rows or notes at the top
  • Skip columns - Ignore columns on the left
Each sheet becomes a separate dataset when importing multiple sheets.

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Importing New Data

Each file upload creates a new dataset. To update data:
  1. Upload a new version of your file
  2. Re-apply your operations to the new dataset
  3. Operations can be copied between datasets

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Troubleshooting

Try changing the encoding to UTF-8 or the encoding that matches your source.
Check that the delimiter is correctly detected. Try specifying it manually.
Ensure dates are in a consistent format. ISO format (YYYY-MM-DD) works best.
Remove currency symbols or thousand separators, or change the column type after import.