xlsxgrep

xlsxgrep is a CLI utility designed to search text inside spreadsheet files including XLSX, XLS, XLSM, CSV, TSV, and ODS formats. Built to mimic the behavior of traditional Unix/GNU Linux grep, it bridges the gap between terminal efficiency and tabular data. Whether you need to count matches across a directory of legacy .xls files, extract specific patterns using Python regular expressions, or output clean tab-separated data for your automation scripts, xlsxgrep handles it natively without requiring you to boot up heavy office suites.

Features

Grep compatible: supports common grep-style options such as -r, -i, and -c.
Batch search: search many spreadsheet files at once, including recursive directory scans.
Parallel execution: multi-process search via -j / --jobs for faster multi-file processing.
Regular expressions: Python regex and POSIX extended regular expressions via -E, with fixed-string mode via -F.
Supported formats: csv, ods, tsv, xls, xlsx, xlsm.
Display-aware values: formatted numeric cells are searched and printed as displayed by XLSX/XLSM, XLS, and ODS spreadsheets; CSV and TSV values remain unchanged.
Cross-platform: works on Windows, macOS, BSD, and Linux.
Search modes: row mode (default) prints matching rows; column mode prints whole matching columns vertically.

Installation

pip install xlsxgrep

Usage

xlsxgrep [OPTION]... PATTERN FILE [FILE]...

See the manual page for full option descriptions, search modes, exit status, and additional examples.

Examples

Search a spreadsheet case-insensitively:

xlsxgrep -i "foo" foobar.xlsx

Count matches and include file names when searching a folder recursively with 4 CPU cores:

xlsxgrep -c -H -r -j 4 "(?i)foo|bar" /folder

Search columns and print matching columns vertically:

xlsxgrep --column "error" report.xlsx

List only files that contain a match:

xlsxgrep -l "invoice" reports/

Search modes