How to open a .parquet file (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Q: Why can't I open my .parquet file?

Usually your computer lacks an app that understands Parquet. Install one of the apps listed here, or convert the file to a more common format.

A .parquet file is a Apache Parquet. If double-clicking does nothing, your computer simply does not have an app that reads Parquet yet. Here is how to fix that on each operating system, using free software wherever possible.

Open a .parquet file step by step

Confirm the file really is a .parquet. Drop it into the WhatFileType file identifier, which reads its signature without uploading anything.
On Windows, open it with Python (pandas, pyarrow) or DuckDB.
On Mac, use Python (pandas, pyarrow) or DuckDB.
On Linux, try Python (pandas, pyarrow) or DuckDB.
Still stuck? Convert the .parquet to CSV, which opens more widely.

Best apps to open .parquet files

Windows

Python (pandas, pyarrow)
DuckDB
Tad viewer

macOS

Python (pandas, pyarrow)
DuckDB
Tad viewer

Linux

Python (pandas, pyarrow)
DuckDB
Apache Spark

Before you open it: Safe. Parquet is data, not code. It is read by analytics libraries, which never execute the file's contents.

Frequently asked questions

Why can't I open my .parquet file?

Almost always because no installed app understands Parquet. Install one of the apps above, or convert the file to a format your existing software already reads.

How do I open a Parquet file?

Use a data tool: in Python, pandas.read_parquet() or DuckDB's SELECT * FROM 'file.parquet'. Desktop viewers like Tad open it without code.

Why is Parquet smaller than CSV?

Storing each column together lets Parquet compress similar values and skip columns a query does not need, so it is usually a fraction of the size of the same data as CSV.