How to open a Numbers file in Excel

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Apple has a productivity suite, iWork, that includes a spreadsheet application called Numbers. It has its own file format for saving files, although it supports CSV. A Numbers file has its own proprietary format, which means that opening or editing it won’t be easy if you don’t have access to a Mac and the Numbers application.

Numbers file in Excel

Numbers is quite popular, but it doesn’t have nearly the same number of users as Microsoft’s Excel. Excel is available for both macOS and Windows 10, which means that it is much more likely to be used than the Numbers app. If you have a .NUMBERS file and need to open it in Excel, you will find that the format is not supported. Excel will try to open or repair the file, but will not be able to do so.

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Export number file to Excel

If you want to open a Numbers file in Excel, you will need to convert it first. This is only reliably possible if you have access to a Mac and the Numbers app is installed on it.

Open the Numbers file in the Numbers app.
Go to File> Export> Excel.
Save the file in Excel format.
Open the exported file.

Open in iCloud

While you can’t open a Numbers file in Excel or Google Sheets, you can still open it online in iCloud. You do need an Apple ID, but you don’t need to have a Mac.

Visit iCloud.
Sign in with your Apple ID.
Select the Numbers app.
Click on the upload icon.
Select the Numbers file and upload it.
Once uploaded, you can open the file in your browser.

Online conversion tools

There are online conversion tools that claim they can convert a Numbers file to an Excel file. They may or may not work. They may be able to convert a file, but whether or not the converted file opens in Excel is a different story. If it is opened, it is very likely that some data will be lost.

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conclusion

The Numbers app and the Numbers format are proprietary, which means there isn’t much you can do about it. Apple reserves the right to keep the format as unique as it wants and is likely to keep it as unique as possible. It is known to do that. If you received a file from Numbers and need to open it in Excel, ask the sender of the file to convert it for you. The conversion tool is built into the application, so it is not difficult.