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How to fix corrupted CSV files in Windows 10

5 min. read

Updated onOctober 3, 2024

updated onOctober 3, 2024

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A CSV file, otherwise known as a comma-separated values file is a format that stores alphanumeric tabular structure data but in plain text format.

Such files have data records, each of which is a collection of at least two (or more) fields separated by commas. These can be imported or exported from software programs such as Excel or Open Office Calc, which store data in the row-column structure.

Among the causes of a corrupted CSV file are:

To fix a corrupted CSV file, we’ve listed below some solutions to help you recover your document back in a usableformat.

How can I recover corrupted CSV files?

1. Use another software to open the CSV file or Import and repair in Excel

Note:Do the above each time the file is opened in Excel.

If you need to open .csv files (or other Spreadsheet files) on Windows 10 and you can’t do this, you can always use third-party solutions.

We recommendFile Viewer Plus, a universal file viewer for Windows that can open over 300 different file types, CSV included. Other file types are documents, photos, videos, archives, or source code files.

Not only do youview the desired documents, but you can also edit, convert to other formats or print them.

2. Use a third-party tool

Before jumping to solutions, we might as well suggest that you use a third-party recovery tool that will do the job for you. It might be less time-consuming, especially if you’re less of a tech geek.

On this note, Stellar Data Recovery is an excellent option. In order to discover more about this tool, just check out our awesomeStellar Data Recovery review.

That’s your chance to recover for free up to 1 GB of lost or deleted documents, email data files, videos, photos, including data from a corrupt or malware-infected drive.

You can use it for both your Windows 10 PC and an external hard drive and it is compatible with hundreds of file formats, CSV. included.

3. Use Unicode UTF-8 encoding

4. Specific solutions

Foreign characters corrupted or missing:use Google sheets, or Open Office, Libre Office, Notepad++ advance apps to repair the corrupted CSV file.

Error messageLine 1 has too many columns…:create a new CSV file with data in 14 columns using Excel, Notepad++ or other apps to recover the CSV data.

Corrupt CSV because of ASCII control, special or extra delimiter characters:

5. Use Notepad or Excel to create a CSV file and repair it

Using Notepad

Use Excel Spreadsheet

6. Recover using Autorecover feature

This feature can be found in Excel. Open a spreadsheet and look for the Autorecover window (usually on the left pane of the window). The screen has a list from where you can select the CSV file. It works with unsaved files.

7. Recover using TMP file

8. Recover the corrupted CSV file from a previous version

So, were you able to find a solution among the ones listed here? If the file is still corrupted, your only option would be to find the original source and thenconvert Excel to CSV file.

Let us know which one worked for you by leaving a comment in the section below.

How to fix corrupted CSV files in Windows 10#

How can I recover corrupted CSV files?#

1. Use another software to open the CSV file or Import and repair in Excel#

2. Use a third-party tool#

3. Use Unicode UTF-8 encoding#

4. Specific solutions#

5. Use Notepad or Excel to create a CSV file and repair it#

6. Recover using Autorecover feature#

7. Recover using TMP file#

8. Recover the corrupted CSV file from a previous version#