Import CSV into Google Sheets
Instantly

CSV (comma-separated values) is one of the oldest and most universal data formats in computing. At its core, a CSV file is just plain text where each line represents a row, and commas separate the values in each column. This simplicity is both its greatest strength and its biggest source of headaches — there's no built-in way to specify data types, character encoding, or date formats.

Google Sheets handles CSV imports well, but problems arise when the CSV was generated by a different system with different regional settings. For example, some European systems use semicolons instead of commas as delimiters (because commas are used as decimal separators). Some older systems export CSV in Windows-1252 or Latin-1 encoding, which causes accented characters to display as garbled symbols (like é instead of é) when opened in Google Sheets, which expects UTF-8.

How This Tool Helps

This converter does more than just preview your CSV — it normalizes it. When you upload a file, SheetJS parses the raw text, auto-detects the delimiter (comma, tab, semicolon, or pipe), interprets the character encoding, and rebuilds the data as a clean, UTF-8 encoded CSV with a byte-order mark (BOM). The BOM is a special invisible character at the start of the file that tells Google Sheets (and Excel) to interpret the file as UTF-8, preventing encoding issues.

The preview table lets you verify that your data looks correct before importing — catching issues like misaligned columns, wrong delimiters, or encoding problems that you'd only discover after the import.

Common CSV Issues and Solutions

Garbled characters (mojibake): This happens when the CSV encoding doesn't match what the importing tool expects. Re-exporting through this tool as UTF-8 with BOM fixes it in most cases.

Dates formatted incorrectly: Different regions use different date formats (MM/DD/YYYY vs DD/MM/YYYY). After importing to Sheets, select the date column and apply the correct format via Format → Number → Date.

Numbers stored as text: Some CSVs export numbers with leading zeros (like zip codes 07102) or currency symbols ($1,500). Google Sheets may treat these as text. After import, use Data → Split text to columns or find-and-replace to clean them up.

Extra commas or line breaks: If a cell value contains a comma or newline, it should be wrapped in quotes in the CSV. Poorly formatted CSVs may not do this, causing columns to shift. This tool's preview catches these issues before you import.