Arrays land as JSON text in one cell
A tags array appears as ["a","b"] in a single cell. Splitting it would change either the row count or the column count, so it is left intact and readable.
Convert JSON to Excel
Getting JSON in front of someone who works in Excel means flattening the nesting and picking sensible columns. This converter does both, and writes a genuine workbook with typed cells and a frozen header rather than a CSV with the wrong extension.
- Runs in your browser
- No signup
- No upload
- Free
JSONExcel
Runs on your deviceCSV
Options
Reading JSON
Auto-detect reads the first rows and picks the separator that splits them consistently.
Turn off when the file starts straight into data. Columns are then named column_1, column_2, and so on.
Turns "42" into a number and "true" into a boolean. Values with leading zeros stay text so IDs and zip codes survive.
Which worksheet to convert. Filled in once the workbook is read.
Dotted path to the array of records, such as data.items. Leave empty to use the whole document.
Turns {"user":{"id":7}} into a user.id column. Arrays are kept as JSON text.
Pick the encoding the file was written in. Wrong encoding shows up as garbled accents.
Comma-separated words that should become null instead of text.
Writing Excel
Snappy is the default across Spark, DuckDB and pandas. Gzip is smaller but slower to read.
Turns a user.id column back into {"user":{"id":7}}.
Excel needs a byte order mark to open UTF-8 files with accents correctly.
Rows per row group. Larger groups compress better; smaller groups let readers skip more.
Converting…
Ad slot ·
conversion-preroll
This short ad is what keeps the converter free.
Work with Parquet as well?See ParquetReader with ParquetReader — opens Parquet files directly.What happens
How this converter handles JSON to Excel
- Finds the records, unwrapping a single-array envelope automatically.
- Flattens nested objects into dotted columns and takes the union of keys across records.
- Writes typed cells so numbers stay numeric and are not stored as text.
- Bolds and freezes the header row.
Format differences
JSON vs Excel
Nested, self-describing records that every language can read. Spreadsheet workbooks with sheets, formatting and cell types.
| JSON | Excel | |
|---|---|---|
| Type information | Strings, numbers, booleans, null | Per cell — text, number, date, boolean |
| Structure | Nested objects and arrays | Sheets of rows and columns |
| Compression | None | Zipped XML |
| Typical file size | Largest — keys repeat on every record | Smaller than CSV, larger than Parquet |
| Schema | Implicit, per record | None beyond the header row |
| Human-readable | Yes, though verbose | Only in a spreadsheet app |
| Tool support | Every language, natively | Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice |
Worth knowing
What to watch out for
Deeply nested JSON produces very wide sheets
Every leaf becomes a column. For deeply nested API responses, set a record path to target the part you actually need.
Excel limits still apply
1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns. Anything beyond that is truncated, with a warning.
When you need this
Common reasons to convert JSON to Excel
Sharing an API export with a business team
A workbook is immediately usable; a JSON file is a support ticket.
Manual review and annotation
Reviewers can filter, sort and add a comment column in Excel.
Building a quick pivot table
Flattened columns with real types are what pivot tables need.
FAQ
JSON to Excel questions
Is my JSON uploaded?
No. The conversion runs in your browser using WebAssembly and JavaScript. The file is read from your disk into a Web Worker, converted in memory, and handed back as a download. It is never sent to a server, so there is nothing for us to store, log or leak.
Why not convert to CSV and open that in Excel?
Because Excel re-guesses every type on import, which is how product codes become dates and leading zeros disappear. Writing .xlsx directly sets each cell type explicitly.
How is nesting handled?
Nested objects become dotted column names. You can change the separator, or turn flattening off to keep nested values as JSON text in a single column.
Can I set the sheet name?
Yes, in the output options, up to Excel’s 31-character limit.
My JSON is one object per line. Will it work?
That is JSONL. Use the JSONL to Excel path by selecting JSONL as the input format — it reads line by line and tolerates a bad record.
Keep going