SmartQueryTools

Convert TSV to CSV Online

Convert TSV files to CSV format directly in your browser. No upload required — your data never leaves your device.

About converting TSV to CSV

TSV to CSV is usually about getting tab-delimited output from scientific or command-line tools into software that assumes commas. Sources include differential expression tables, BLAST tabular output (-outfmt 6), featureCounts summaries, database dumps written with PostgreSQL COPY or MySQL SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE, and cells copied out of a spreadsheet, which the clipboard holds as tab-separated text.

Many destinations are CSV-first: BI upload forms, CRM imports, Excel and Google Sheets on double-click, and database import wizards that default to a comma. Values that contain commas, which are common in gene descriptions, addresses and free text, are wrapped in double quotes in the CSV so they stay in one column.

TSV sources bring their own conventions, and they pass through unchanged. R's write.table prints NA for missing values, and PostgreSQL and MySQL dumps use \N. Both stay as literal text in the CSV. Backslash escapes such as \t inside a value are kept as two characters, not turned into a tab. Replace these markers with empty fields first if you want real blanks. One more trap: a single row with an extra tab can make delimiter detection fail, and the whole file then loads as one column.

Not sure which format you need? Read the TSV vs CSV comparison.

Worked example

A small sample file, converted with the default settings.

Input (TSV)

symbol	chrom	description	tpm	detected
TP53	chr17	tumor protein p53	24.7	true
BRCA1	chr17	BRCA1 DNA repair associated	8.13	true
NT5C	chr17	5', 3'-nucleotidase, cytosolic	3.4	true
SREBF2	chr22	sterol regulatory element binding transcription factor 2		false

Output (CSV)

symbol,chrom,description,tpm,detected
TP53,chr17,tumor protein p53,24.7,true
BRCA1,chr17,BRCA1 DNA repair associated,8.13,true
NT5C,chr17,"5', 3'-nucleotidase, cytosolic",3.4,true
SREBF2,chr22,sterol regulatory element binding transcription factor 2,,false

What changes when you convert TSV to CSV

  • Tabs between fields become commas. The header line stays first.
  • NT5C's description contains commas, so the CSV wraps it in double quotes. In the TSV it needed none.
  • The apostrophes in that description need no escaping in either format.
  • SREBF2's missing tpm stays an empty field, so two commas sit next to each other.
  • Numbers are written from their parsed values, so a TSV value of 8.130 would come out as 8.13.
  • Lines end with a line feed, and the file has no byte order mark.

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

Why do accented or Greek characters look wrong when Excel opens the CSV?

The CSV is UTF-8 without a byte order mark, and Excel on Windows assumes a legacy encoding for files without one. Open it through Data > From Text/CSV and choose UTF-8, or import it into Google Sheets, which reads UTF-8 correctly.

My TSV came from R with quotes around every string. Is that a problem?

No. write.table quotes strings by default, and those quotes are recognised and removed when the file loads. In the CSV, only values that need quoting (commas, double quotes, line breaks) get quotes again.

Can I convert a .txt, .tab or .bed file?

Yes. Drag the file onto the drop zone. The file picker lists only .tsv files, but dropped files with other extensions are read as delimited text and the tab is detected automatically. BED files have no header line, so their columns are named column0, column1 and so on.

What is CSV format?

CSV (Comma-Separated Values) is a plain-text tabular format supported by virtually every data tool, spreadsheet app, and programming language.

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