Excel to CSV Converter
Get every sheet of an Excel workbook out as separate CSV files in one pass, from a 1990s .xls to a macro-enabled .xlsm, with the delimiter and encoding your target program expects.
Data Converter
or drop CSV, TSV, TXT … files here ·
Max 95 MB per file· Up to 20 files· Deleted after 30 minutes
Files are processed on our servers and deleted after 30 minutes.
Character that separates columns in CSV and text files, for both reading and writing. Auto detects it from the input and writes commas.
UTF-8 works for every language. Choose UTF-8 with BOM if Excel on Windows shows garbled accents or Asian characters when opening the CSV.
Excel, ODS and Numbers input: convert the first sheet only, or every sheet (one CSV per sheet in a ZIP, or one JSON key per sheet).
Name of the sheet tab in the new spreadsheet, up to 31 characters.
Array of objects uses column names as keys for every row; array of arrays is more compact and keeps the header as the first array.
Name of the outer element that wraps all rows; each row becomes a <row> inside it.
Used in CREATE TABLE and INSERT statements. Letters, digits and underscores only.
Quoting and column types differ slightly between databases; pick the one you will import into.
Rewrite date cells in one format. ISO (2026-10-18) is safest for databases and code; keep leaves them as they appear in the source.
How to use this tool
- 1
Upload the workbooks
Add .xls, .xlsx or .xlsm files, up to 20 at a time and 95 MB each. Mixed generations in one batch are fine.
- 2
Choose sheets and delimiter
Sheets to convert starts on all sheets. Set Delimiter to semicolon if the CSV is going to someone whose Excel uses a comma as the decimal mark.
- 3
Convert and unpack
Press Convert to CSV. A workbook with several tabs comes back as a ZIP holding one CSV per sheet, named after each tab.
Upload an .xls, .xlsx or .xlsm file and press Convert to CSV: each sheet becomes a separate UTF-8 CSV, ready to reopen in Excel or import elsewhere.
Excel to CSV for whole workbooks, not just one tab
Excel has written three main workbook formats over the years. The binary .xls of Excel 97 to 2003 stores sheets as BIFF records and caps them at 65,536 rows. The .xlsx introduced with Excel 2007 is Office Open XML, a ZIP of XML parts with room for 1,048,576 rows. The .xlsm is the same container with VBA macros inside. All three hold several sheets, while a CSV holds exactly one.
That mismatch is the everyday problem: a monthly report with a tab per month, a budget with one sheet per department, a survey export with responses on one tab and codes on another. Exporting from Excel means activating each tab, choosing Save As and confirming warnings, twelve times over. Here the whole workbook goes in once and each tab comes out as a file named after it.
For the first tab of a modern workbook going into a store or CRM, XLSX to CSV is set up with ISO dates.
Excel Save As, Google Sheets and this converter compared
| This converter | Excel Save As | Google Sheets download | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Every sheet exported in one step | yes | no | no |
| Comma or semicolon chosen per file | yes | Follows Windows region | Comma only |
| Opens .xls, .xlsx and .xlsm | yes | yes | After importing to Sheets |
| UTF-8 output | yes | Only with the CSV UTF-8 type | yes |
| Works without installing software | yes | no | yes |
Comma or semicolon: CSV delimiters by region
In the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Japan and other places where the decimal mark is a period, Windows uses a comma as the list separator. Excel there writes and expects commas.
- Delimiter: comma
- Matches RFC 4180 and most web importers
In Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Brazil and much of Europe, the comma is the decimal mark (1.234,56), so Windows switches the list separator to a semicolon and Excel follows it.
- Delimiter: semicolon
- Use it when a colleague in those regions opens the file by double-clicking
Tabs almost never appear inside real data, which makes them the safest separator for text with commas and semicolons in it, such as addresses or product descriptions.
- Delimiter: tab
- Or pick TSV under Convert to
XLS
Microsoft Excel 97–2003 workbook
XLS is the binary spreadsheet format used by Excel from Excel 97 until XLSX replaced it in 2007. It is limited to 65,536 rows and 256 columns per sheet and stores data in a proprietary structure. Many legacy systems, government portals and older banking exports still produce or require XLS. Excel, LibreOffice and Google Sheets can open it.
- Compression
- –
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- 1997 · Microsoft
CSV
Comma-separated values
CSV is a plain-text format for tables in which each line is a row and commas separate the columns. It has been used since the early days of computing and is described in RFC 4180, though many variants use semicolons or tabs and different text encodings. Nearly every spreadsheet, database and analytics tool can import and export it, which makes it the default format for moving data between systems. CSV stores only values, with no formulas, formatting, multiple sheets or data types.
- Compression
- –
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- –
People turn whole Excel workbooks into CSV to hand data to someone without Excel, to archive it as plain text that will outlive any spreadsheet program, or to split a multi-tab report into one file per table.
Numbers, dates and leading zeros in the exported CSV
The CSV receives each cell's stored value, not its on-screen format. Dates are written as Excel displays them unless you set Dates to ISO or a Unix timestamp, and numbers keep their full precision. Excel stores dates as serial numbers counted from January 1, 1900, and still treats 1900 as a leap year, a bug kept for compatibility with Lotus 1-2-3.
Leading zeros survive only if the cell was text in the workbook. A ZIP code typed as 02134 in a number cell was already stored as 2134, so the CSV cannot bring the zero back. The return trip matters too: double-clicking a CSV lets Excel guess types again, which is how gene names such as SEPT2 became dates; in 2020 the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee renamed them (SEPTIN2). To rebuild a workbook with control, use CSV to XLS or Data → From Text/CSV.
Excel to CSV converter FAQ
Why does Excel only save the current sheet as CSV?
A CSV file holds one table, so Excel's Save As writes the active sheet and warns that the rest will be lost. With Sheets to convert set to all sheets, every tab here becomes its own CSV inside one ZIP.
Can I convert an old .xls file from Excel 2003 to CSV?
Yes. The binary .xls format used by Excel 97 to 2003 converts exactly like an .xlsx. Its sheets are capped at 65,536 rows and 256 columns, so the CSV will never be larger than that grid.
What happens to macros in an .xlsm workbook?
VBA macros are code, not data, so they are left out; the CSV holds the cell values the macros last produced.
How do I make Excel open a semicolon CSV in columns?
Excel splits a CSV using the list separator from your Windows region settings. If the file uses the other character, open it through Data → From Text/CSV and pick the delimiter there, or convert it again with the matching Delimiter setting.
Why choose UTF-8 with BOM for Excel to CSV?
The byte order mark is three invisible bytes at the start of the file that tell Excel on Windows to read the text as UTF-8. Without it, Excel falls back to the local code page and accented names turn into symbols such as é. Most web importers ignore the BOM, though a few strict scripts trip on it.
