Convert Excel to Arrow Online
Convert Excel files to Arrow format directly in your browser. No upload required — your data never leaves your device.
About converting Excel to Arrow
Arrow IPC is the in-memory format behind pandas 2 (with the pyarrow backend), polars, pyarrow and many query engines. Converting an Excel sheet to an Arrow file gives Python and R users a typed table that loads almost instantly, instead of running openpyxl on every read. It is also a reasonable format for passing a typed snapshot between processes or notebooks.
The output is an Arrow IPC file with the ARROW1 header, the same layout as Feather version 2. Read it with pyarrow.ipc.open_file, pandas.read_feather, polars.read_ipc or arrow::read_feather in R. It is not compressed, so expect it to be larger than the XLSX.
Column types come from the text the first sheet displays. Plain numbers give Int64 or Float64 columns, true and false give Bool, and cells with any date format give a Date32 column, or a Timestamp column when they include a time. Anything with a currency symbol, percent sign or error value gives a string column. Hidden rows and columns are included, because the converter reads the whole used range of the sheet. Rows filtered out with AutoFilter are included too. If you only want the visible rows, copy them to a new sheet first.
Worked example
A small orders export with an ID, a customer name, a date, an amount (one missing) and a true/false flag, converted with the default settings.
Input (Excel)
Excel workbook, first sheet (Sheet1)
| order_id | customer | order_date | amount | shipped |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1001 | Acme Ltd | 2026-03-02 | 249.5 | true |
| 1002 | Brightside Co | 2026-03-02 | 1200 | false |
| 1003 | Acme Ltd | 2026-03-05 | 89.99 | true |
| 1004 | Northwind | 2026-03-07 | NULL | false |
Output (Arrow)
Arrow IPC file (binary, columnar) — shown as a table with its schema
| order_id | customer | order_date | amount | shipped |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1001 | Acme Ltd | 2026-03-02 | 249.5 | true |
| 1002 | Brightside Co | 2026-03-02 | 1200 | false |
| 1003 | Acme Ltd | 2026-03-05 | 89.99 | true |
| 1004 | Northwind | 2026-03-07 | NULL | false |
Schema: order_id BIGINT, customer VARCHAR, order_date DATE, amount DOUBLE, shipped BOOLEAN
What changes when you convert Excel to Arrow
- The header row becomes Arrow field names in the schema.
- order_id becomes Int64, amount becomes Float64 and shipped becomes Bool.
- order_date holds real Excel dates, so it becomes a Date32 column.
- Empty cells, such as order 1004's amount, are stored as nulls in the validity bitmap.
- The file is uncompressed Arrow IPC, so it is usually larger than the source XLSX.
Your file is processed locally in your browser and is never uploaded. The free limit is 50 MB per file; larger files work if your device has the memory for them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this Arrow file the same as a Feather file?
Yes. Feather version 2 is the Arrow IPC file format. You can rename the file to .feather and read it with pandas.read_feather or R's arrow package.
Why is the Arrow file bigger than my Excel file?
XLSX is ZIP-compressed XML. The Arrow file stores raw column buffers without compression so it can be read with little or no parsing. Use Parquet if file size matters more than load speed.
Are hidden rows and columns included?
Yes. The converter reads every cell in the sheet's used range, whether it is hidden, grouped or filtered out. Delete what you do not want in Excel before converting.
What is Arrow format?
Apache Arrow is a columnar in-memory format designed for zero-copy reads and high-speed exchange between data systems.
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