Fix garbled characters in your store locator CSV
When a CSV is not saved as UTF-8, accents break. München arrives as München, and other characters turn into �. Store locator importers read UTF-8, so the fix is to save the file correctly, or let the tool above write it for you.
Drop your spreadsheet hereChoose your spreadsheet
or
Read on your computer, never uploaded.
No file?
Try one:
Pick one to see what CSV Mapper does with it.
What it looks like
München → München Punctuation and accents → � or …
The first comes from Stockist's help pages. The others are from WP Store Locator's troubleshooting section.
What each platform expects
| Platform | Encoding | What you see when it is wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Stockist | UTF-8 .csv | A file format warning in the importer, and München for München |
| WP Store Locator | UTF-8 | "400 Bad Request" from the Geocode API, or "Could not insert post" |
| Agile Store Locator | UTF-8 | Covered by its "UTF-8 CSV File Error Fix" wiki page |
| MetaLocator | CSV UTF-8 recommended | Other formats confuse the importer |
| Storepoint | Not documented | Not documented |
| Google Business Profile | Not documented | Not documented |
How the tool handles it
We read your file as UTF-8. If it is not valid UTF-8, we read it as Windows-1252, the older Excel encoding, and tell you we did. UTF-16 files are read too. Either way München is read as München.
Our download is always UTF-8. MetaLocator files also start with a byte order mark, like MetaLocator's own template.
If the junk is already in your cells, because a garbled file was saved again, we cannot tell what it used to say. Fix those cells by hand or go back to an older copy.
Save a UTF-8 CSV yourself
- In Excel, use Save As and pick CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited). The plain CSV (Comma delimited) option is not UTF-8.
- In Google Sheets, use File, then Download, then Comma-separated values (.csv). Sheets downloads UTF-8.
- Or skip both: drop the .xlsx into the tool above and download the CSV from there.
Questions
Why does München turn into München?
The file was saved in one encoding and read as another. Store locators read UTF-8, so save the file as UTF-8 before you import it.
Why does WP Store Locator say 400 Bad Request when I import?
The CSV Manager troubleshooting puts it down to a file that is not UTF-8. Save it again as UTF-8 and import again.
Why does the Stockist importer show a file format warning?
The file is not a UTF-8 CSV. Re-save it as UTF-8, or let the tool write it.
Related
Sources
Last checked against the vendor docs on 2 October 2026. Platforms change their importers, so check the source if something looks different.