Why does my CSV open as one column?

Excel in many European locales saves "CSV" with semicolons between values, and tools expecting commas read each line as one long value. This page reads the semicolons and writes real commas, quoting values that need it.

What happens to numbers like 1.234,56?

They become 1234.56 — the same number in the notation every database and US-locale tool expects. Columns are converted only when nearly every value in them reads as a number, and the count of rewritten values is shown before you download.

What if I do not want my numbers touched?

Turn the conversion off with one switch; the separator is still fixed and every value is carried exactly as written.

My umlauts show as Ã¤ garbage — does this fix that too?

Yes. The file is decoded by what it actually is — Windows-1252 exports are the usual case — and the download is clean UTF-8, so ä stays ä.

Is my file uploaded anywhere?

No. The conversion runs inside this page: when you fix a semicolon CSV here, the browser is told to block outbound connections, so nothing can be sent to another server. Keep the Network tab of your developer tools open while you fix a semicolon CSV: every request in it goes to this site, and none carries your file.

Fix a semicolon CSV — the European export, made standard

Turn a semicolon, tab or pipe separated European export into standard comma CSV — decimal commas converted so 1.234,56 stays the number it is. No upload.

Fix delimiter / European CSVRunning on your device

Source

Your file

or drag one here · it stays on your device

Result

Add a semicolon, tab or pipe separated file. The preview shows it read correctly before anything downloads.

How this works

Add your file. Drop the semicolon or tab separated file onto the page.
Check the preview. Columns split correctly, and the count of rewritten numbers is stated.
Download. Save the standard comma CSV.

What it cannot do

Number conversion is deliberately conservative: a column qualifies only when nearly every value in it reads as a number, so a text column containing 12,5 in passing is never touched.
A value like 1.234 alone is read as the German thousand — one thousand two hundred and thirty-four — because that is what the file format means by it; if your file mixes conventions in one column, fix that column by hand in the editor.
Comma, semicolon, tab and pipe are the separators it reads — detected automatically, with an override when the guess is wrong; other custom separators are not read yet.
UTF-16 files are not rewritten yet; save as CSV UTF-8 first and the page says so.

Questions

Why does my CSV open as one column?: Excel in many European locales saves "CSV" with semicolons between values, and tools expecting commas read each line as one long value. This page reads the semicolons and writes real commas, quoting values that need it.
What happens to numbers like 1.234,56?: They become 1234.56 — the same number in the notation every database and US-locale tool expects. Columns are converted only when nearly every value in them reads as a number, and the count of rewritten values is shown before you download.
What if I do not want my numbers touched?: Turn the conversion off with one switch; the separator is still fixed and every value is carried exactly as written.
My umlauts show as Ã¤ garbage — does this fix that too?: Yes. The file is decoded by what it actually is — Windows-1252 exports are the usual case — and the download is clean UTF-8, so ä stays ä.
Is my file uploaded anywhere?: No. The conversion runs inside this page: when you fix a semicolon CSV here, the browser is told to block outbound connections, so nothing can be sent to another server. Keep the Network tab of your developer tools open while you fix a semicolon CSV: every request in it goes to this site, and none carries your file.

Your file is processed in this page and never uploaded — the privacy page shows how to confirm that yourself.

Common problems this solves

My CSV opened as one column — Excel used semicolons — A CSV showing everything in column A was saved with semicolons by a European Excel. Why, how to tell, and how to convert it without retyping a number.
Which separator and encoding does my CSV use? — Comma, semicolon, tab or pipe; UTF-8, Windows-1252 or UTF-16. How to read what a CSV really uses from its first line, and how to convert it. No upload.
CSV UTF-8 or plain CSV — which one to save from Excel, and why the accents break — Excel offers CSV and CSV UTF-8. Pick the wrong one and accents and non-Latin names come out as ? or Ã©. Which to pick, and how to repair a file.
Excel says the file format and extension don't match — what the file really is — The warning means the file is not what its name says — usually a web page of a table, or plain CSV, named .xls. How to tell, and how to get the rows out.
pandas says "Error tokenizing data. C error: Expected 5 fields, saw 7" — find the row and fix the file — read_csv stopped because a line has more fields than the heading. Find every such row, see why — an unquoted comma, a stray break — and fix the file.
The Amazon Seller Central report: a tab-separated .txt that Excel opens as one column — Seller Central reports arrive as tab-separated .txt files with a summary line on top. Turn one into a clean CSV that keeps every SKU and id as written.
Why a German CSV opens as one column — and what 1.234 means — A German export uses semicolons between fields and a decimal comma. Why 1.234 is one thousand, not one point two, and how to convert the file safely.
A French CSV: semicolons, decimal commas, and a space you cannot see — French exports use semicolons and group thousands with a space that is often a no-break space. What converts automatically here, and what does not.
A Dutch CSV: semicolons, decimal commas, and dates written with dashes — Dutch exports use semicolons and a decimal comma, and write dates 31-12-2026 — dashes that look like an ISO date in the wrong order. How to read one.
A Spanish CSV: semicolons, decimal commas, and identifiers that lose their zeros — Spanish exports use semicolons and a decimal comma. The quieter problem is reference numbers with leading zeros that a spreadsheet throws away on opening.
An Italian CSV: semicolons, decimal commas, and accents that arrive broken — Italian exports use semicolons and a decimal comma, and often arrive as Windows-1252, which is why città shows up as cittÃ . How to read one properly.
A Brazilian CSV: semicolons, decimal commas, and amounts with R$ attached — Brazilian exports use semicolons and a decimal comma, and often carry the currency inside the amount column, which stops any of it converting. What to do.
A Swedish CSV: the dates are already right, the numbers are not — Swedish exports already write dates the international way, so only the separator and the numbers need work — and a thousands space stops those converting.
A Swiss CSV: semicolons, a decimal point, and apostrophes inside the numbers — Switzerland writes 1'234.56: apostrophe thousands, decimal point, no comma. Why the usual European conversion does nothing here, and what to do instead.
Import a CSV into Google Contacts: 3,000 at a time, under headings Google knows — Google Contacts takes up to 3,000 contacts per import and reads fields by their headings. Cut a bigger file into pieces and fix the headings here first.
Prepare a CSV for Mailchimp: one address per contact, and no stray spaces — Mailchimp wants one email column in a CSV or tab-delimited file, with no spaces around an address. Find the near-duplicates and clean the column here.
Import customers into Shopify: one row per email, UTF-8, and tags in quotes — Shopify keeps only the last row sharing an email or phone. Choose which one survives, and fix the encoding errors behind Illegal quoting, here first.