Is the CSV to XML converter free?
Yes. It is completely free to use, with no signup, no account, and no paywall.
Do I need to install anything?
No. It runs in any modern browser on desktop or mobile, with nothing to download and nothing to configure.
Does it stay local?
Yes. Your data is converted entirely in your browser and never uploaded to a server.
My CSV has a description field with line breaks in it and the output is wrong. Why?
The converter splits the input on newlines first and parses fields second, so a newline inside a quoted cell is read as the end of a row rather than as part of the value. RFC 4180 does permit line breaks inside quoted fields, and spreadsheet exports produce them regularly, so this is a genuine gap. The workaround is to replace line breaks inside cells with a space or a marker before converting, either in the spreadsheet or with a find-and-replace.
My file came out as one column per row. What happened?
It is almost certainly semicolon-delimited. Excel on a system with a comma decimal separator, which covers most of continental Europe, exports CSV using semicolons. Since this converter splits on commas, every line becomes a single field. Re-export using comma delimiters, or do a find-and-replace on the delimiter first, being careful not to change semicolons that appear inside the data.
Does it handle commas inside quoted fields?
Yes. The field parser tracks quoting state, so a value such as "Amsterdam, Netherlands" stays as one field, and a doubled quote inside a quoted field is correctly read as a literal quote character. That part follows the CSV convention properly. It is only line breaks inside quoted fields that fall outside what the parser handles.
Why did my column names change in the XML?
XML element names cannot contain spaces or most punctuation and cannot begin with a digit, so the headers are rewritten to make the output well-formed. Illegal characters become underscores and a leading digit gains an underscore prefix. If a downstream system expects exact element names, check the header row before you convert, or rename the columns in the source file.
Is my file uploaded anywhere?
No. The CSV text is parsed and converted by JavaScript running in your browser. CSVs routinely contain customer lists, order histories, and email addresses, so it matters that none of it is transmitted or stored.