How to open a JSON file and inspect the real data

1. Open a JSON file in your browser

Open the JSON viewer and choose a .json file up to 50 MB. The file contents are parsed in your browser and are not uploaded to Loam. Arrays of objects become table rows, nested object keys become columns, and you can sort, filter, or download the active view as CSV.

This works well when the JSON came from an app export and you want to inspect its records as a table.

2. Open a JSON file in Excel

Excel can import JSON in several steps. Here's the path:

1. In Excel, go to Data → Get Data → From File → From JSON.
2. Pick your .json file and click Import.
3. In the Power Query editor, use To Table, then expand each record into columns with the expand buttons.
4. Click Close & Load to drop the result into a sheet.

Review how any tool interprets IDs and long numbers. The browser viewer uses standard JSON parsing, so keep identifiers as strings when every digit must remain exact.

3. Open a JSON file in a text editor

Because JSON is plain text, editors such as Notepad, TextEdit, and VS Code can open it. Rename the file to .txt if your OS won't open it directly, or open it from inside the editor. VS Code and most editors can format the JSON (right-click → Format Document) to add indentation so the structure is readable.

This works for a quick check or a small edit. A table can be easier to scan when the JSON contains a list of similar records.

Which way should you use?

Use the browser viewer when you want a table you can sort and filter. Use Excel when the rest of your work already lives there, and review detected types for IDs and long numbers. Use a text editor when you need to inspect or edit the raw JSON.