How to Import CSV Files into Excel Correctly (No Garbled Text)

Opening a CSV file in Excel by double-clicking it often goes wrong: accented characters turn into gibberish, phone numbers lose their leading zeros, dates flip to the wrong format, and one column with a comma inside it splits into two. None of this means the CSV file is broken — it means Excel guessed wrong about how to read it. Importing the file properly, instead of just opening it, fixes all of this in under a minute. This guide covers the current method in modern Excel, plus the classic method for older versions.

Why this happens

A CSV file is just plain text — Excel has to guess the encoding (how characters are stored), the delimiter (comma, semicolon, or tab), and the format of each column. Double-clicking a file hands Excel zero context, so it falls back to your system's default settings — which is exactly when accented names, non-English text, or ID numbers with leading zeros get mangled. Importing instead of opening lets you tell Excel explicitly what the file actually is, and it gets everything right.

Method 1: Import via Power Query (current Excel)

This is the default import experience in current versions of Excel (Microsoft 365 and recent standalone versions):

• 1. Open a blank workbook in Excel.
• 2. Go to the Data tab, then click Get Data → From File → From Text/CSV (in some versions this shows as a single "From Text/CSV" icon on the Data ribbon).
• 3. Select your CSV file and click Import.
• 4. A preview window opens. Check the File Origin dropdown — set it to UTF-8 if your data contains accented characters, non-English text, or symbols. Confirm the Delimiter shown matches your file (usually Comma).
• 5. If everything in the preview looks correct, click Load to bring the data straight into a new sheet. If any column needs a specific format — for example, treating ID numbers as text so leading zeros survive — click Transform Data instead to open Power Query, adjust the column type, then Close & Load.

The data now loads as a proper table. One advantage of importing this way: the table stays connected to the source file, so if you get an updated export later, you can right-click the table and hit Refresh instead of importing again from scratch.

Method 2: The classic Text Import Wizard (older Excel versions)

If your version of Excel still shows the older wizard, or you're on an older release where Power Query isn't available:

• 1. Open a blank workbook, go to the Data tab, and click From Text (older ribbon layouts) or Get External Data → From Text.
• 2. Select your CSV file and click Import to launch the Text Import Wizard.
• 3. Step 1 of the wizard: choose Delimited as the file type, and set File Origin to 65001: Unicode (UTF-8). Click Next.



• 4. Step 2: check Comma as the delimiter (uncheck any others that are pre-selected), and set Text Qualifier to double quotes ("). Click Next.
• 5. Step 3: select General as the column data format (or set specific columns to Text if you need to preserve leading zeros), then click Finish.



• 6. Choose whether to place the data in the current sheet or a new one.

Your data now displays correctly — no strange characters, no misaligned columns.

Common problems and quick fixes

Accented characters or symbols show as odd characters (mojibake). This is almost always an encoding mismatch. Re-import and explicitly set the file origin/encoding to UTF-8, rather than opening the file directly.

Leading zeros disappear (00123 becomes 123). Excel is interpreting the column as a number. During import, set that column's format to Text before loading.

All the data lands in one column. The delimiter Excel guessed doesn't match your file. Re-import and manually select the correct delimiter (comma, semicolon, or tab) in the preview step.

Dates show the wrong day/month order. Excel applied your system's regional date format instead of the source format. Set that column's data type explicitly during import rather than leaving it on auto-detect.

Why this matters for scraped and exported data

This isn't just a general Excel quirk — it directly affects anyone exporting business data to CSV. Every crawler in Botsol's suite, including the Google Maps scraper, exports results as comma-delimited, UTF-8, double-quote-qualified CSV files by default — which is exactly the format this guide's import settings are built for. Business names with accents, addresses in non-English regions, and phone numbers with leading zeros are common in this kind of data, so importing correctly (rather than just double-clicking the file) is the difference between a clean spreadsheet and one full of garbled text.

If you're working specifically with Google Maps exports, our guide on exporting Google Maps data to Excel or JSON covers the full workflow end to end, and the general data-extraction guide covers the extraction side.

Frequently asked questions

Why does opening a CSV directly in Excel show strange characters?

Excel guesses the encoding when you simply open a file, and if that guess doesn't match how the CSV was actually saved (usually UTF-8), accented and special characters get corrupted. Importing the file lets you set the encoding explicitly and avoids the problem entirely.

What's the difference between opening and importing a CSV in Excel?

Opening (double-click, or File → Open) uses Excel's default guesses for encoding and format with no opportunity to correct them. Importing (Data → Get Data → From Text/CSV) shows you a preview and lets you set the encoding, delimiter, and column formats before the data loads.

How do I keep leading zeros in a column, like ZIP codes or phone numbers?

During import, set that specific column's data type to Text rather than leaving it on the default. Once loaded as a number, leading zeros are gone for good, so it has to be set before the load.

Can I automatically refresh the data if I get an updated CSV file later?

Yes, if you import via Power Query (Method 1). The loaded table stays linked to the source file — right-click it and choose Refresh to pull in the latest version of the file without repeating the whole import.

Conclusion

A garbled CSV in Excel is almost never a bad export — it's Excel guessing wrong about encoding, delimiters, or column formats when you just open the file. Import instead, set the encoding to UTF-8 and the delimiter explicitly, and every business name, phone number, and address comes through exactly as exported.