Inkwell Data / Combine monthly files
Combine monthly files into one
Drop in two to five monthly exports and they are stacked into one file straight away, with a source_file column saying which month each row came from. Columns are matched by name, even if their order changed. Then add steps to clean or total it, and save it as a pipeline for next month.
- Drop your monthly files
- They're stacked for you
- Download
How it works
- Drop in your monthly files (up to five; for more, use Transform's “Run these steps on more files at once”).
- They're stacked for you with a source_file column. Columns with the same name line up; new columns are added at the end.
- Add steps if you like, such as Remove duplicate rows or Group & summarize, then run it and download.
Questions
Do the columns have to be in the same order?
No. Columns are matched by name, ignoring upper and lower case. A column that's only in some files is kept, with blanks for the others.
Are my files uploaded anywhere?
No. Every file is read and processed by your own browser. Big files are worked through a piece at a time inside this tab, and the built-in DuckDB engine that sorts and de-duplicates them runs here too. Nothing is sent to a server.
How big can the files be?
CSV and TSV files of hundreds of megabytes or millions of rows work: while you build, you see the first 5,000 rows, and running the pipeline processes every row in the background. On a typical laptop 1.5 million rows take well under a minute. Excel, JSON and Parquet files are read whole, so keep those under about 80 MB.
What's the difference between the list and the diagram?
Nothing but the view. The list is the simple way: steps run top to bottom. The diagram draws the same pipeline as boxes and lines, which you can drag around. Switch any time; the pipeline doesn't change.