CSV Cleaner
Paste a CSV or open a file, tick the clean-ups you want and download a tidy copy. Every cell is read properly, including values in quotes that run over several lines.
Drag a file here or choose one
Worked examples
Spaces, a blank row and a repeated header
Name,City Ann Lee , Leeds , Name,City Bob,York
Name,City Ann Lee,Leeds Bob,York
Trim, squash spaces, remove empty rows and remove rows that repeat the header were ticked. The result has two data rows.
Placeholders to blanks
id,score 1,N/A 2,- 3,7
id,score 1, 2, 3,7
With N/A and - in the placeholder list, two cells become blank.
About CSV Cleaner
A CSV cleaner fixes the small faults that creep into data when it is copied between systems. A name with a space on the end will not match the same name without one. A curly quotation mark looks like a straight one but is a different character. A non-breaking space looks like an ordinary space and is not. Blank rows at the bottom and a header repeated in the middle of a stitched-together export make tables awkward to sort, count and import.
Paste your data or open a file, tick the clean-ups you want and the result appears straight away, with a count of what changed. The file is read the way spreadsheet programs read it, so values in quotes can hold commas, quotation marks and line breaks without being split. When you are happy, download the tidy copy or copy it to the clipboard. Nothing is changed unless you tick it.
How to use CSV Cleaner
- Paste your CSV into the box, or choose or drop a file. The separator is found for you.
- Tick the clean-ups you want: trimming, squashing spaces, hidden characters, curly quotes, empty rows and columns, repeated headers.
- Add any placeholders such as N/A or NULL that should become blank cells.
- Check the preview and the counts, then download the cleaned file or copy it.
Common uses
- Preparing a customer list before a mail merge or an import
- Fixing a report copied from a web page or a PDF
- Removing blank rows and columns from an export before analysis
- Making sure two lists match before joining them
Frequently asked questions
What does trimming do?
It removes spaces, tabs and line breaks from the start and end of each cell. A cell holding " Ann " becomes "Ann". Spaces between words are left alone unless you also choose to squash repeated spaces.
What are hidden characters?
Zero width spaces, byte order marks, control characters and non-breaking spaces. They are invisible on screen but stop values matching and can break imports. The cleaner removes the invisible ones and turns non-breaking spaces into ordinary spaces.
Will it change the numbers in my file?
No. Cells are treated as text, so 007 stays 007 and 1.50 stays 1.50. Only the clean-ups you tick are applied.
Why are my quotation marks different after cleaning?
If you tick the straighten option, curly quotation marks become straight ones. When a value contains a straight double quote, the file is written with the value in quotes and the quote doubled, as the CSV format requires.
What happens to a row that has too few values?
It is filled out with blank cells so every row has the same number of columns as the widest row. The count of such rows is shown under the box.