What about tabs inside values?

PapaParse handles quoted fields; wrap values containing tabs in double quotes.

TSV to CSV Converter

Convert tab-separated values (TSV) to comma-separated values (CSV) in your browser. Nothing uploaded.

By AbraCalc Editorial Team · Reviewed by AbraCalc Methodology Review · Last reviewed: 2026-06-26 2 sources

TSV (tab-separated values)

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<iframe src="https://abracalc.com/app/tsv-to-csv/" width="100%" height="640" style="border:1px solid #e6e1f0;border-radius:12px" loading="lazy"></iframe>

Cite this tool

APA

AbraCalc. (2026). TSV to CSV Converter [Online calculator]. Retrieved from https://abracalc.com/app/tsv-to-csv/

BibTeX

@misc{abracalc-tsv-to-csv, author = {AbraCalc}, title = {TSV to CSV Converter}, year = {2026}, howpublished = {\url{https://abracalc.com/app/tsv-to-csv/}} }

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How to use this tool

Paste TSV (tab-separated) text.
Click Convert to CSV.
Download the .csv file.

Convert tab-separated values (TSV) to comma-separated values (CSV) in your browser. Nothing uploaded.

How it works

TSV (Tab-Separated Values) is a common export format from spreadsheet applications, databases, and data science tools. This converter transforms TSV data into standard CSV so it can be opened in tools that expect commas as delimiters.

The tool replaces each tab character between fields with a comma, and automatically wraps any field that already contains a comma in double quotes to prevent it from being misread as a delimiter. Fields that already contain double quotes are escaped according to the RFC 4180 CSV specification.

Paste your TSV text directly or upload a .tsv or .txt file. The converted CSV appears immediately and can be copied or downloaded. Everything runs in your browser with no server involved.

Use this tool when a database export, Python script, or tool like Excel's Text Import produces tab-delimited output but your target system requires standard CSV.

Worked example

Convert a PostgreSQL COPY export to CSV

Run COPY table TO stdout DELIMITER E'\t' CSV HEADER; and capture the output.
Paste the tab-delimited text into the TSV to CSV converter.
Click Convert.
Copy the resulting CSV and save it as data.csv.

A valid CSV file with commas as delimiters, ready to import into Excel or a web-based data tool.

Common mistakes to avoid

Pasting CSV (comma-delimited) data into the TSV converter — the tool will treat your commas as literal text and only act on tabs, producing garbled output.
Opening a .tsv file in Excel before converting, because Excel may silently reformat or re-encode the file; copy-paste from the raw file instead.
Ignoring a mismatch in column count between rows, which usually means some rows in the source are missing a tab separator.

Key terms

TSV: Tab-Separated Values — a plain-text table format where columns are separated by tab characters instead of commas.
RFC 4180: The informal standard that defines how CSV files should be formatted, including quoting rules for fields that contain commas or line breaks.

Frequently asked questions

What about tabs inside values?: PapaParse handles quoted fields; wrap values containing tabs in double quotes.