Open a spreadsheet in Numbers on Mac
You can open spreadsheets saved on your Mac, in iCloud Drive, on connected servers and in third-party storage providers. If you can’t open a Numbers spreadsheet, make sure that you have the latest version of Numbers from the Mac App Store. If a spreadsheet is dimmed and can’t be selected, it means the spreadsheet can’t be opened by Numbers.
You can open Microsoft Excel spreadsheets (files with a .xls or .xlsx filename extension), delimited text files or fixed-width text files into Numbers and make changes to them. See Import an Excel or text file into Numbers on Mac.
Open an existing spreadsheet in Numbers
Do any of the following:
Open a spreadsheet on a Mac: For a Numbers spreadsheet, double-click the spreadsheet name or thumbnail or drag it to the Numbers icon in the Dock or in the Applications folder. For an Excel spreadsheet, drag it to the Numbers icon (double-clicking the file opens Excel if you have that app).
Open a spreadsheet you recently worked on: In Numbers, choose File > Open Recent (from the File menu at the top of your screen). Numbers shows up to the last ten spreadsheets you opened. Choose one to open it.
Open a spreadsheet stored somewhere other than your Mac (such as iCloud Drive): In Numbers, choose File > Open (from the file menu at the top of your screen). In the dialogue, click a location in the sidebar on the left or click the pop-up menu at the top of the dialogue, then choose the location where the spreadsheet is saved. Double-click the spreadsheet to open it.
When you open a spreadsheet that uses fonts not installed on your computer, a missing font notification appears briefly at the top of the spreadsheet. In the notification, click Show and choose a replacement font. You can use Font Book, available in the Applications folder on your Mac, to install fonts you purchase or download.
Open spreadsheets in tabs
You can have more than one Numbers spreadsheet open at a time. When you work in multiple spreadsheets, it’s helpful to open them in tabs rather than in separate windows — that way, you can move between them by clicking the tabs in the tab bar.
Do one of the following:
macOS Ventura 13 or later: Choose Apple menu
> System Settings, then click Desktop & Dock in the sidebar. (You may need to scroll down.) Go to Windows & Apps on the right.macOS 12 or earlier: Choose Apple menu
> System Preferences, then click General.
Click the pop-up menu next to “Prefer tabs when opening documents” (or “Prefer tabs” in System Preferences), then choose “Always” or “In Full Screen”.
This setting applies not just to Numbers, but also to documents in other applications such as TextEdit, Pages and Keynote.
Note: If you already have multiple spreadsheets open in separate windows and you want to merge them into a single window with tabs, choose Window > Merge All Windows.
Close a spreadsheet
Close a spreadsheet but keep Numbers open: Click the red close button in the top-left corner of the Numbers window or press Command-W.
Close the spreadsheet and quit Numbers: Choose Numbers > Quit Numbers (from the Numbers menu at the top of your screen). All your changes are saved.
Some templates aren’t downloaded to your computer until you choose them or open a spreadsheet that uses one. If your connection is slow or you’re offline when this happens, images in the spreadsheet may appear at a lower resolution until you’re online again or the template finishes downloading.