CSV import error
How to fix a CSV that imports as one column
What this error means and the exact, free way to fix it — right in your browser, with nothing uploaded.
If your import fails with:
What it means
In many European locales Excel saves CSVs using semicolons (;) as the separator, because the comma is the decimal mark there. A store importer that expects commas reads the whole row as a single column, so nothing maps and the import fails or produces empty products.
Common causes
- Excel is set to a locale that uses ";" as the list separator.
- The file was exported with tab or pipe (|) separators.
- Prices use comma decimals (24,99) which forces a non-comma delimiter.
How to fix it
The fix is to rewrite the file with commas as the separator and proper quoting.
- Open the file in the free Fix a CSV tool.
- It auto-detects the delimiter (semicolon, tab or pipe) and rewrites the file using commas, quoting any field that itself contains a comma.
- Re-import the comma-separated file.
If your prices use comma decimals (24,99), the CatalogPort converter's locale handling normalizes them to dot decimals (24.99) when you convert — useful before importing to a US-format platform or feed.
Switch it to commas free, in your browser
Fix a CSV detects the real separator and re-writes the file with commas so importers parse the columns correctly.
Also free, in your browser: all CSV tools · the converter · Fix a CSV · Split CSV