Open DuckDB Files

VisiGrid opens local DuckDB (.duckdb) databases in the desktop app and the vgrid CLI, starting in VisiGrid 0.45.0. The database is opened read-only and is never modified; the tables you choose are copied into sheets.

Open a database

Open the .duckdb file with Ctrl+O. Before anything is copied, a picker lists the database’s tables with their exact row counts and previews the first eight rows of the highlighted one. Choose one or more tables and Import; each becomes a sheet. Cancel leaves the workbook as it was.

Key	In the picker
↑ ↓	Highlight a table and preview it
Space	Select or clear the highlighted table
Ctrl+F	Search table names
Tab	Move between search, select all, the list and the buttons
Ctrl+Enter	Import the selected tables
Esc	Cancel

Only base tables are listed; views are not imported. Column types come through the same way as Parquet: numbers stay numbers, text stays text (including 007 and values starting with =), and dates, times and timestamps keep their types.

A selection must fit in sheets (1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns each) and within 10 million cells in total. The picker says so before importing; filter or split the table in DuckDB first.

DuckDB is opened without network access and without installing or loading extensions, so a database can’t reach out to anything when you open it.

Refresh a table into a sheet

An import recipe can read one DuckDB table, apply steps such as keeping, renaming and filtering columns, and refresh the result into a Table whenever the database changes (0.47.0 and later).

From the command line

vgrid peek and vgrid convert read DuckDB through the same importer:

# Browse a table in the terminal
vgrid peek warehouse.duckdb --sheet main.orders

# One table to CSV or Excel
vgrid convert warehouse.duckdb --sheet main.orders -t csv -o orders.csv
vgrid convert warehouse.duckdb --sheet main.orders -t xlsx -o orders.xlsx

Write Parquet or DuckDB

vgrid convert writes one worksheet as typed Parquet, or as a new DuckDB database holding it as main.data. An existing database is never replaced.

# See the column types and any conflicts first, as JSON, without writing
vgrid convert orders.csv --headers -t parquet --parquet-plan

vgrid convert orders.csv --headers -t parquet -o orders.parquet
vgrid convert orders.csv --headers -t duckdb -o orders.duckdb

# A column mixing numbers and text (A-1, 7) must be exported as text
vgrid convert orders.csv --headers -t parquet --text-column Reference -o orders.parquet

Exports carry calculated values, not formulas or formatting. A column whose values mix types (numbers and text, say) stops the export until you choose --text-column for it. DuckDB column names must also be unique ignoring case.

See vgrid convert and vgrid peek for every option.