CSV Delimiter Converter
Convert a CSV between comma, semicolon, tab (TSV) and pipe delimiters — quoting and escaping handled correctly.
Quick answer: Convert a CSV between comma, semicolon, tab (TSV) and pipe delimiters — quoting and escaping handled correctly.
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Frequently asked questions
- When do I need to convert a CSV's delimiter?
- Most often when sharing files between locales — German Excel writes semicolon-separated CSV by default, US Excel uses comma. Some data warehouses prefer TSV (tab) because tabs don't appear in clean text data.
- Will my data be re-quoted correctly?
- Yes. After converting, any field that contains the new delimiter, a quote or a newline gets wrapped in `"…"` with embedded quotes doubled — that's the RFC-4180 contract. Re-importing the result into Excel or Sheets is lossless.
- What's the difference between CSV and TSV?
- TSV uses a tab character between fields instead of a comma. Tabs are very rare in real text data, so TSV typically needs less quoting and round-trips through copy-paste into Excel without any 'open as text' dialogue.
- Are quoted fields preserved?
- Yes — the parser handles quoted fields with embedded commas, newlines and `""` escape sequences. The output keeps the same logical structure with the new delimiter.
- Does it auto-detect the input delimiter?
- Yes. We sniff the first 10 lines and pick the candidate (`,`, `;`, `\t`, `|`) with the most consistent column count. You can override the choice in the dropdown.
- Can I convert to a custom delimiter not in the list?
- Not yet — only the four common delimiters are exposed. Email us if you need a different one (e.g. `\u001E` record separator) and we'll add it.
- Will it change my line endings?
- Output uses LF (`\n`) line endings, the cross-platform default. Use the CSV File Cleaner if you specifically need CRLF for an old Windows tool.
- Is the file uploaded?
- No. Conversion happens entirely in your browser using Papaparse — your data never reaches our servers.
- What encoding does the output use?
- UTF-8 without BOM. If you need a UTF-8 BOM for Excel for Windows, open the file in any text editor and re-save with BOM, or paste into the Cleaner and let Excel add it on import.
- Why is the file size slightly different after conversion?
- Switching delimiter means some fields no longer need quoting (smaller) and others now do (slightly larger). Total size shifts by a few percent at most.