Convert CSV to TSV Online
Convert CSV files to TSV format directly in your browser. No upload required — your data never leaves your device.
About converting CSV to TSV
CSV to TSV swaps the comma delimiter for a tab. People do it because a lot of tooling reads tabs more reliably than commas. Unix cut, awk and sort split on a single character with no quote handling. Many bioinformatics tools expect tab-delimited input. And pasting TSV text into a spreadsheet drops each value into its own column.
The gain is biggest when values contain commas: addresses such as "12 Main St, Dublin", free-text notes, or numbers written as 1,200. In CSV those fields must be quoted, and naive split-on-comma code breaks on them. In the TSV output they are written plain.
This is not a byte-for-byte delimiter swap. The file is parsed and typed first, then written out again. Decimals lose trailing zeros (2.50 becomes 2.5), yes/no and T/F columns become true/false, and ISO date-times get a space in place of the T. Values that contain a tab, a line break or a double quote are wrapped in double quotes, which strict TSV readers such as cut will show literally. If the text must stay identical apart from the delimiter, use a CSV-aware command-line tool such as csvkit's csvformat -T instead.
Not sure which format you need? Read the TSV vs CSV comparison.
Worked example
A small orders export with an ID, a customer name, a date, an amount (one missing) and a true/false flag, converted with the default settings.
Input (CSV)
order_id,customer,order_date,amount,shipped
1001,Acme Ltd,2026-03-02,249.5,true
1002,Brightside Co,2026-03-02,1200,false
1003,Acme Ltd,2026-03-05,89.99,true
1004,Northwind,2026-03-07,,falseOutput (TSV)
order_id customer order_date amount shipped
1001 Acme Ltd 2026-03-02 249.5 true
1002 Brightside Co 2026-03-02 1200 false
1003 Acme Ltd 2026-03-05 89.99 true
1004 Northwind 2026-03-07 falseWhat changes when you convert CSV to TSV
- Commas between fields become tab characters. The header row stays as the first line.
- A value containing a comma is no longer quoted, because a comma is ordinary text in TSV.
- A value containing a tab, a line break or a double quote is wrapped in double quotes, with inner quotes doubled.
- Order 1004's empty amount stays empty, so two tabs sit next to each other on that line.
- Numbers and booleans are written from their parsed values, so a source value of 249.50 would come out as 249.5.
- Lines end with a line feed, not CRLF.
Your file is processed locally in your browser and is never uploaded. The free limit is 50 MB per file; larger files work if your device has the memory for them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will commas inside my values cause problems in TSV?
No. Commas are plain characters in TSV, so a field like "Smith, John" is written without quotes and stays in one column. Only tabs, line breaks and double quotes trigger quoting.
Why do some fields in my TSV have double quotes around them?
Those values contain a tab, a line break or a double quote. The converter quotes them the way CSV does so the row stays intact. pandas (with sep="\t") and spreadsheet apps remove the quotes on import. cut and awk do not, so clean those characters out first if you rely on them.
Does the TSV keep leading zeros in codes like 00123?
Yes. A column that contains a value with a leading zero is read as text, so the zeros are written back out unchanged. Only columns of plain numbers such as 123 and 2134 are read as integers.
What is TSV format?
TSV (Tab-Separated Values) is similar to CSV but uses tab characters as delimiters — useful when data values contain commas.
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