The Apple Numbers row limit is 1 million rows, but Numbers may slow down or crash before hitting the max row. If a CSV file with greater than 1,000,000 rows is loaded, only the first 1 million are imported into the spreadsheet. The Apple Numbers column limit is 1000 columns, so the max column in Numbers in ALL. In the below post, we explain why the Apple Numbers limit exists and what to do about it. If you're looking for an easy solution, try Row Zero - a cloud spreadsheet that is built for big data and 1000x more powerful than traditional spreadsheets.
Contents
- Top 3 solutions to the Apple Numbers row limit
- Why does Apple Numbers limit rows to 1,000,000?
- How to open a big CSV on macOS
- Conclusion
Top 3 Solutions to the Apple Numbers Row Limit
1. Use a more powerful spreadsheet
Row Zero is a next-gen spreadsheet built for big data that is 1000x more powerful than traditional spreadsheets. Row Zero works like Apple Numbers, Microsoft Excel, and Google Sheets but can handle tens of millions of rows on a free plan and a billion rows of data on Enterprise plans. Row Zero is a cloud spreadsheet so it works on any device and is a good alternative to Apple Numbers for mac users.
2. Use a different application that is better at handling large amounts of data.
- Jupyter Notebook - Jupyter is a tool best suited for software engineers, data scientists, and analysts that know how to code. The application enables manipulation of large data sets with commands written in code cells and can handle millions of rows, though it runs locally and is dependent on the hardware on a personal computer.
- SQLite - SQLite is an easy to install lightweight database that can be installed and run on a user's computer. The database can store millions of rows of data, which can be accessed by writing SQL queries to transform and analyze data. Once transformed to a smaller subset, the data can be opened in a spreadsheet.
3. Open in a text editor and truncate
Open the large data set in a big text editor, like notepad++ and delete all rows over the Apple Numbers max row of 1,000,000 so it can be opened in Numbers. 
Limits of Apple Numbers compared to Excel and other spreadsheets
Just like Apple Numbers, traditional spreadsheets like Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets also have similar max row limits near 1 million rows and hit performance issues with big data. Row Zero is a next-gen spreadsheet built for big data and is 1000X more powerful than traditional spreadsheets. Here's a breakdown of row limits by spreadsheet:
Why does Apple Numbers limit rows to 1,000,000?
Apple Numbers is a software application that runs locally on a personal computer. The application has a hard limit of 1,000,000 rows but, like Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, the program starts slowing down long before a data set reaches 1,000,000 rows. When trying to edit the sheet, you may see screens, like the following:
The reason for slow performance is in order for Apple Numbers to support the interactive visual user interface, it must store all the data in memory, of which there is only a limited amount on a personal computer. As more data is added to the spreadsheet, more memory is consumed and less is available for other actions like updating cells, transforming data in columns, or formatting the spreadsheet. Apple Numbers users report the application taking several seconds to update the value in one cell when their spreadsheet has close to 1,000,000 rows. Performing bigger operations like filling a column down 1,000,000 rows can take a long time to execute and may potentially crash the program. If you try to load a file that has more than 1,000,000 rows in Apple Numbers, the application will show the following modal and only load the first 1,000,000 rows of the dataset.
How to open a big CSV on macOS
If you need to open a big CSV on a Mac and the file is too large for Apple Numbers, you can open it for free in Row Zero. Row Zero makes it easy to open a big CSV on macOS and any other operating system since it is a powerful online spreadsheet.
Row Zero also supports many big file formats, so if you need to open a large file on a Mac, Row Zero can open Parquet, TXT, JSONL, .gz, TSV, XLSX, etc.
Conclusion
Apple Numbers is a good spreadsheet application for Mac users with small datasets, but the program enforces a 1,000,000 row limit. If you attempt to open a dataset larger than the 1 million max row in Apple Numbers, only the first 1,000,000 rows will be shown. Lastly, the application will run slowly on large data sets that are less than 1,000,000 rows. There are a number of different options for working around the Numbers row limit, but the easiest is to simply use a more powerful spreadsheet. Row Zero is a powerful next-gen spreadsheet that runs in the cloud and doesn't require a download so it is a good Apple Numbers alternative for big data users.
Another solution to a slow spreadsheet would be the use of a BI tool, like Microsoft's PowerBI or Tableau business intelligence tools. Both tools are feature rich and powerful visualization and BI tools. These tools are very different from the spreadsheets most people are familiar with and for that reason, were not reviewed in this post.