Fix a CSV that opens garbled in Excel

How it works

1. Drop the CSV that opens garbled.
2. Leave the target on UTF-8 with BOM. It is what Excel needs to read the file as UTF-8.
3. Press Fix CSV. The page detects the file’s current encoding and tells you what it found.
4. Download the fixed CSV and double-click it: Excel now shows the text as it should.

Frequently asked questions

Why does Excel garble a CSV in the first place?

When you double-click a CSV, Excel assumes the old encoding of your Windows unless the file starts with a byte-order mark (BOM) saying it is UTF-8. Files from Google Sheets, web apps and Macs are UTF-8 without that mark, so é becomes é and ü becomes ü. Adding the mark is enough.

Does it change the data?

No. Only the encoding changes. Every character, separator and quote stays as it was; the file simply gains three bytes at the start.

The CSV came from an old system and looks garbled in Google Sheets instead.

That is the opposite problem: the file is in an old encoding such as Windows-1252 or Shift_JIS, and Sheets expects UTF-8. The same conversion fixes it, because the current encoding is detected and the result is UTF-8.

Is the file uploaded?

No. It is converted in your browser and never leaves your device.

Can I avoid this next time?

In Excel, open CSVs through Data › From Text/CSV and choose 65001: Unicode (UTF-8) as the file origin. When saving, choose CSV UTF-8, which writes the BOM for you.