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TSV to XML Converter

Turn TSV files into XML in a couple of clicks. TSV is the same idea as CSV but tab-delimited — safer for text containing commas; XML is verbose but strict hierarchical markup. The conversion is lossless — every pixel, sample or byte in the source is preserved.

Not uploaded to any serverConverted on this deviceGone when you close the tabHow this works

Drop your files here

TSV files (.tsv, .tab) · up to 100 MB each

or paste files from your clipboard

Ready when you are

Drop a TSV file above and FileTools360 will turn it into XML — right here on your device, without uploading anything.

⌘K to search converters

How to use it

1
Add your TSV files
Drag them onto the drop area, choose them from your device, or paste them from your clipboard. You can queue several at once. Nothing is sent anywhere — the file stays on this device.
2
Adjust the settings if you want to
The defaults suit most people. Open Advanced to control delimiter and header handling and indentation and element names.
3
Convert and download
Press Convert. Everything happens on your own device — nothing is uploaded. Download files one by one, or grab them all as a ZIP.

Privacy, in plain words

Is it safe? Your TSV file is not uploaded anywhere

What “uploaded” normally means. On most online converters, pressing the button copies your file across the internet onto a computer owned by that website. That copy is what the word “upload” means, and it is the part nobody explains.

What happens instead. This site does not do it. There is no server here that receives files, so your TSV file is read, converted and handed back by the browser you are using right now. It never travels — so there is no copy to store, read, leak or hand over.

Check it yourself in ten seconds

Turn off your Wi-Fi after this page has loaded, then convert a file anyway. It still works, because everything needed is already on your device.

The longer explanation of how this works, and the full detail of what is and is not stored on the privacy page.

Why this matters more than it sounds

A spreadsheet is rarely about one person. It is usually about hundreds of them, which is what turns an ordinary file into a reportable data breach. It matters more than it sounds, because of what spreadsheets usually are:

Supplier pricing

commercially confidential by contract, usually

Donor and volunteer databases

people who trusted an organisation, not a converter

Payroll

every colleague's salary, in one file

Customer and member lists

names, emails, phone numbers, addresses

A file that is never sent cannot be kept, leaked, subpoenaed or used to train anything. That is a property of how this works, not a promise about how carefully it is run.

TSV and XML explained

TSV is CSV with tab characters as separators. Because tabs almost never appear inside data fields, it sidesteps most of CSV's quoting problems.

XML is a markup language for hierarchical data, with elements, attributes and optional schema validation. It is more verbose than JSON but far more rigorous.

Where TSV files come from: Bioinformatics, data pipelines and anywhere fields contain commas.
Where XML is used: Enterprise integrations, RSS feeds, and document formats like DOCX and SVG.

TSV vs XML

The two formats solve different problems, which is why converting between them involves trade-offs rather than a straight upgrade.

TSV compared with XML
Property	Source	Target
Compression	None	None
Introduced	—	1998
Browser support	Wide, especially in data tooling.	Universal, though JSON has replaced it in most new work.

TSV is stronger at: No ambiguity with commas inside values. Simpler parsing than CSV. Common in scientific data.
XML is stronger at: Schema validation catches malformed data. Namespaces prevent naming collisions. Attributes and elements model documents well.

Why convert TSV to XML?

People make this switch when they run into the limits of TSV: handing files to non-technical recipients. XML is the better fit when enterprise systems, document formats or where schema validation is required.

TSV limitations that prompt the switch: Tabs are invisible, making manual editing error-prone. Less universally recognised than CSV.
What you give up: Verbose — often several times the size of equivalent JSON. More complex to parse.

What is preserved when converting TSV to XML?

Both formats store the content without discarding data, so this conversion preserves it exactly. The file size may change because the two formats compress differently, but the content itself is unaffected.

Measured, not estimated

What converting TSV to XML actually costs

On every sample measured, the XML came out larger — 1.9× larger at best and 5.6× larger at worst.

Each row is one sample chosen to isolate a property these formats treat differently.
Sample	TSV in	XML out	Change
A plain tableTen rows of flat records — the shape almost every spreadsheet export actually has.	380 B	1.7 KB	4.5×
Many columnsForty columns across three rows. Column-heavy data is where per-cell overhead shows up.	1.3 KB	4.3 KB	3.3×
Nested recordsObjects inside objects. This is the shape that cannot survive a flat format intact, and the one that triggers a warning.	301 B	1.6 KB	5.6×
Commas and quotation marksText fields containing the delimiter and the quote character — where an escaping bug would show.	875 B	1.6 KB	+87%

Produced by this site's own converter. The same code that runs in your browser, at the same default settings, so these are the bytes you would download.

Samples are generated from a fixed seed rather than taken from real photographs or documents, so the corpus is reproducible and carries no licensing question — and so the numbers predict the shape of your result rather than its exact size. Measured 2026-10-01. The method, and the command that regenerates every figure on this page, are on the how it works page.

About these formats

Source

Tab-Separated Values

Like CSV but tab-delimited — safer for text with commas.

Extensions: .tsv, .tab
MIME type: text/tab-separated-values
Best for: Data pipelines · Text containing commas
Compatibility: Wide, especially in data tooling.

Target

Extensible Markup Language

Verbose but strict hierarchical markup.

Extensions: .xml
MIME type: application/xml
Best for: Enterprise integrations · Feeds · Document schemas
Compatibility: Universal, though JSON has replaced it in most new work.

Good to know

TSV to XML Converter — questions

How do I convert TSV to XML?

Drop your TSV file onto the area above, then press Convert. The XML file saves straight to your device. You do not need an account, and there is no watermark.

Is it safe to convert TSV files here — are they uploaded to a server?

No, nothing is uploaded. On most online converters, pressing the button copies your file across the internet onto a computer owned by that website; it is converted there and sent back. That copy is what "upload" means, and it is the part that puts your file out of your control. This site does not do it. Your TSV file is read and converted by the browser you are using right now and never leaves this device, so there is no copy for anyone to store, read or hand over. You can prove it: turn off your Wi-Fi after this page loads and the conversion still works.

Can I convert confidential TSV files, like bank statements or contracts?

Yes, and that is the case this site was built for. Because the file never leaves your device, a confidential document is no more exposed than it is sitting in your own folder — there is no transfer, no copy on someone else's hardware, no retention period to read about and no staff with access. Nothing is logged about the file either: not its name, not its size, not its contents. The one thing worth saying plainly is that this protects the file in transit and at rest on our side, not from anything already on your own computer.

What is preserved when converting to XML?

Everything in the file carries over. XML stores the same values as TSV, so the data itself is unchanged — what differs is the syntax around it, and anything XML has no way to express, such as comments, is dropped.

How large a file can I convert?

Up to 100 MB per file for this conversion. Because the work happens in your browser, the practical limit is your device's memory — larger files work on a desktop with plenty of RAM and may fail on an older phone.

Can I convert several files at once?

Yes. Add as many as you like and press Convert All. Each file is processed independently, so one failure does not stop the rest, and you can download everything together as a ZIP.

Can I use this on my phone?

Yes. FileTools360 works in mobile browsers on iOS and Android. Pick the file through your phone's file picker — Files on iOS, or Downloads on Android — including files stored in iCloud or Google Drive.