CSV cleanup checklist before importing into Excel, Sheets, or a CRM
A short pre-import checklist to catch the most common CSV problems before they cause failed imports or silent data corruption.
Before you work through this by hand: you can check your own CSV free and see which of these problems your file actually has — duplicate rows, near-duplicates, broken quoting, encoding damage. It runs in your browser tab, nothing is uploaded, and there's no signup or email.
- Confirm the header row matches what the destination system expects (exact column names, no extra/missing columns).
- Check for duplicate rows, both exact and near-duplicate (see our duplicate-removal guide).
- Check character encoding is UTF-8 to avoid garbled accented characters.
- Check for uneven column counts caused by unquoted commas inside text fields.
- Check for blank rows at the end of the file, which some import tools reject (see our guide to removing blank rows/columns).
- Keep a backup of the original export before you clean anything, since cleanup steps are usually not reversible once saved over the original.
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