Excel to JSON (and JSON to Excel): XLSX Sheets to JSON Rows

Turn XLSX sheets into JSON rows (and JSON back into Excel)

Excel to JSON in one step: paste a link to an .xlsx file and get every row as a JSON object, with numbers kept as numbers and dates as ISO text, plus a downloadable .json file. Give a JSON or NDJSON file instead and you get an Excel sheet back.

Try it free: leave the input empty and press Start — a built-in 2-sheet Excel sample is converted (not charged, rows carry _demo: true).

Excel row	JSON row
id 1, company Blue Harbor Co, monthly_usd 49, since 10/01/2025	{"id": 1, "company": "Blue Harbor Co", "monthly_usd": 49, "since": "2025-01-10"}

• Price: $0.01 per 1,000 rows converted, charged per row ($0.00001 a row) — a 300-row sheet costs $0.003, 50,000 rows cost $0.50. Failed runs and the demo are free. Store discounts apply automatically: BRONZE −10%, SILVER −20%, GOLD −30%.
• Big sheets are fine: sheets are read row by row; a 1,000,000-row sheet converts within the default memory.

How to use

1. File URL: a public link to an .xlsx file (Excel to JSON) or a .json / .ndjson file (JSON to Excel). The direction follows the file type.
2. Optional: Sheet (empty = first sheet, * = all sheets), Header row (default 1), Output file name.

{ "fileUrl": "https://example.com/price-list.xlsx", "sheet": "*", "headerRow": 1 }

Excel to JSON

• One JSON object per row, keys from the header row. Empty rows are skipped; empty header cells become column_1, column_2...; repeated names get _2, _3.
• Values keep their type: numbers stay numbers (49, 49.5), TRUE/FALSE become true/false, dates become 2025-01-10 and date-times 2025-03-01T14:30:00, empty cells null.
• Formulas: the result Excel saved with the file is used, the formula itself is never run (files written by some tools without Excel may have no saved result, which gives null).
• Output: the rows in the dataset (download as JSON, CSV or Excel from the run page) and one .json file with a download link — an array of rows, or for all sheets an object keyed by sheet name.

JSON to Excel

• Accepts a JSON array of objects, an object holding one array ({"items": [...]}), or NDJSON (one object per line).
• Nested objects become dot columns (address.city); arrays are written as JSON text. Columns follow the order they first appear.
• Safe for Excel: text is always stored as text, so a value like =HYPERLINK(...) never runs as a formula; integers longer than 15 digits are kept as text so Excel does not round them.
• Output: one .xlsx file with a download link, and a summary item in the dataset.

Limits (cannot be raised by input)

• Files up to 100 MB; 1,000,000 rows per run; Excel sheets hold at most 1,048,575 rows; cells longer than 32,767 characters are cut (the run tells you how many)
• Old .xls files (Excel 97-2003) are not supported — save them as .xlsx first. Password-protected files cannot be opened
• Set a maximum charge per run to cap spend; a file that needs more fails before anything is charged. Public files only (no login); links to internal network addresses are blocked

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.00001 per row converted ($0.01 per 1,000 rows), charged per row. Failed runs and the demo are free. On the Apify Free plan, the $5 of monthly platform credit covers about 500,000 rows a month — enough to try it on real data.

FAQ

CSV files? Use the CSV / XLSX Converter from the same developer — it handles CSV, TSV, Excel, JSON and NDJSON in any direction. Need only some rows? Filter the JSON rows afterwards with the Filter Rows Actor from the same developer.

If this Actor saved you time, a rating on the Store helps others find it.

More tools from the same developer

• CSV / XLSX Converter — convert CSV, TSV, Excel XLSX, JSON and NDJSON files or Apify datasets into each other
• Dataset Splitter — split a dataset or CSV/JSON file into parts by rows, parts, column value or size, or take a random sample
• Remove Duplicates — merge Apify datasets and remove duplicates by the fields you choose
• Google Sheets Export — export an Apify dataset to Google Sheets