Excel to CSV Converter

Open an .xlsx workbook and get clean CSV back, without uploading the file anywhere.

This tool runs entirely in your browser. Your data is never uploaded, never stored, and never leaves your device.

Opens an .xlsx workbook and gives back plain CSV, on screen to copy and as a file to download, naming which sheet it used and which it left behind.

How to use it

1Drop in an .xlsx file — old .xls files from before 2007 need re-saving first, and the page says so rather than failing quietly.
2Read the CSV in the box, or copy it.
3Download the .csv if you want the file.

Example

Input: A workbook with one sheet, three columns and two data rows
Output: 2 rows converted from sheet "Sheet1", and CSV reading name,role,city followed by the two rows — round-tripped back to exactly the text it was built from.

Only the first sheet is converted, because a CSV file holds one table and a multi-sheet workbook has no single right answer. Rather than choosing silently, the page names the sheet it used and lists the ones it skipped. Formulas come through as the value they currently display, not as the formula.

What happens to your data

Reading a spreadsheet means unzipping it and parsing its XML, and that happens here in the page — the workbook is never sent to us or to anyone else. That is the whole reason this tool exists in this form: the .xlsx files people need converted are the ones they cannot email around, and every other converter for this asks you to upload it first.

Last updated August 2026

Converting Excel to CSV is what you do when something on the other end wants plain data: an import screen, a script, a database load, a system that predates spreadsheets. The catch is that a spreadsheet holds far more than a CSV can — formatting, formulas, several sheets — and something has to decide what survives.

This converts an xlsx to CSV in your browser rather than silently dropping the parts that do not fit.

Two situations bring people here. If something on the other end wants one table of values — an import screen, a database load, a script — a CSV is the right destination and the conversion is the whole job. If you are trying to move a workbook somewhere and keep it whole, no CSV will do that at any quality.

The usual mistake is expecting the result to resemble what is on screen. What comes out is what each cell holds, not how it is displayed — so open the workbook first and check the sheet you need is the one sitting in front.

How it works

Toolvore reads the workbook with read-excel-file and writes the cell values out as comma-separated text, quoting any field that contains a comma, a quote or a line break so the result parses correctly at the other end. Formulas are exported as the values they had when the file was saved, because that is what a CSV can hold. Nothing is uploaded. What crosses over is what a cell holds rather than what it shows: a date arrives as a date and is written as an ISO yyyy-mm-dd, so a cell displayed as 12/08/2026 changes shape, and number formatting — currency symbols, thousands separators, percentages, padded codes — is not part of the value and does not survive. Blank cells become empty fields. Only the first sheet is read, and the panel afterwards names it and lists the ones left out. Merged cells, colours, comments and charts have no representation in CSV at all.

Common use cases

Exporting a spreadsheet as CSV for an import screen that requires one
Converting xlsx to CSV for a script or a data pipeline to read
Getting a plain-text copy of data for version control or diffing
Preparing a file for a system that cannot open modern Excel formats
Stripping formatting from a sheet to see the underlying values

Frequently asked questions

How do I convert Excel to CSV?＋

Drop the .xlsx in and download the CSV. No signup, and the file is never uploaded.

What happens to formulas?＋

They become the values they last evaluated to, because CSV has no concept of a formula. If you need the formulas themselves, a CSV is the wrong destination.

What about multiple sheets?＋

CSV is a single table by definition, so a multi-sheet workbook cannot be represented in one file. Convert the sheet you need.

Are commas inside cells handled?＋

Yes. Any value containing a comma, a quote or a newline is quoted and escaped so it parses back correctly rather than shifting every column after it.

Why do leading zeros disappear when a spreadsheet becomes a CSV?＋

Because those zeros were usually formatting rather than part of the value. A product code typed as 00123 into a numeric cell is stored as 123 and shown padded by a number format, and a format is precisely what a CSV cannot carry — what gets written out is the stored value. The fix is upstream: set the column to Text in the spreadsheet, then retype or re-paste the codes so the zeros belong to the value itself. Cells already stored as text come through unchanged, which is the state to aim for.

What encoding does a CSV use, and why do accented characters come out wrong?＋

The file is written as UTF-8. A CSV carries no record of its own encoding, so whatever opens it has to guess, and Excel on Windows has a long habit of assuming a legacy code page when you double-click a .csv — which is how an accented name arrives as mojibake. No byte order mark is added here, and that mark is the hint some versions of Excel rely on. The dependable route in is Data, then From Text/CSV, choosing UTF-8. Sheets and LibreOffice assume UTF-8, so the same file opens cleanly there.

How do I convert an old .xls file?＋

Re-save it as .xlsx first — Excel, LibreOffice and Google Sheets all offer that from Save As or Download. The reader behind this page handles the modern zipped .xlsx format and refuses the pre-2007 binary one outright. One trap: the file check here accepts the .xls extension, so choosing a genuine one skips the advice about re-saving and lands on the generic message about a workbook that could not be read, which also mentions password protection. If you dropped an .xls, the format is the reason.

Does a CSV use CRLF or LF line endings?＋

Rows here end with a carriage return and a line feed, which RFC 4180, the nearest thing CSV has to a specification, asks for. Windows software expects it and most Unix tools cope, but not all: a strict line-splitter can leave a stray carriage return on the end of every row, showing up as a ^M in an editor or an invisible extra character on the last field. If that bites, dos2unix or tr -d clears it in one pass — worth ruling out early, since it breaks the final column quietly.

My import wants semicolons rather than commas — what do I do?＋

Semicolon files exist because in locales where the comma is the decimal separator, Excel uses the semicolon as its list separator instead — so a French or German copy of Excel both expects and produces them. Nothing here writes one: fields are always joined with commas and there is no delimiter setting. A find-and-replace on the result is safe only if no field contains a comma of its own; if any does, you will shift columns without being told. Otherwise export from Excel itself, which follows your regional settings.