Convert CSV to TSV Online
Paste comma-separated values, get tab-separated values back. Runs in your browser, so nothing is uploaded.
Examples
| Input | Output | |
|---|---|---|
| Simple | apple,banana,cherry |
apple⇥banana⇥cherry |
| Realistic | Smith Ltd,44,London |
Smith Ltd⇥44⇥London |
Why convert this way
TSV survives commas inside values. That is the whole reason to switch. A product name like Chair, oak destroys a CSV row but sits happily in a TSV field, because tabs almost never appear inside real data.
When you will need it
- Preparing a file for a system that rejects quoted CSV
- Pasting into Excel or Google Sheets, which read tabs natively
- Feeding a Unix pipeline where
cut -fexpects tabs - Escaping quote-hell in an export full of addresses or descriptions
"Chair, oak",12 naively gives you three fields instead of two.
What the settings do here
- Split on comma — the tool reads
apple,banana,cherryas 3 separate items. - Join with a tab
— producing
apple⇥banana⇥cherry.
Where this comes up
In practice this comes up when an export looks fine until one row has a company name like Smith, Jones & Co. That single comma shifts every field after it, and the import fails with a column-count error rather than anything that names the real cause.
Related conversions
Still deciding which format you want? The CSV vs TSV comparison sets out the trade-offs side by side.
Going the other way, or joining with something else entirely? The delimiter converter accepts any split and join pair including custom separators, and the index has the 16 ready-made ones.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why convert CSV to TSV?
Because tab characters almost never appear inside real data, while commas appear constantly in names, addresses and descriptions. Switching to tabs removes the need for quoting and the whole class of bugs that comes with it.
What happens to quoted values when converting CSV to TSV?
Quotes in the source are treated as ordinary characters, so a field written as "Chair, oak" splits on its internal comma and becomes two fields. Strip or check the quoting before converting.