How to import or convert a CSV file into Google Sheets

Key Takeaways

in this video i'm going to show you how to import a csv into google sheets now if you're wanting to import a csv into google sheets there's actually a few different ways to do this and the main thing that i'm going to go over in this video is how to get the csv data directly into an existing spreadsheet but if you're wanting to import a csv into google sheets you might actually be wondering how you directly convert a csv file into a new google sheets file and so at the end of the video i will also show you how to do this but for now let's get some csv data directly into this spreadsheet so the first thing that i'm going to do is select cell a1 because this is where i want to import my data then i'm going to click file on the top toolbar and then i'm going to click import now i'm going to click upload then click select a file from your device now navigate to the folder in your computer that actually contains this csv that you want to import which in my case is the downloads folder and this csv sales data i'm going to double click this file google sheets will upload the file and then you'll see this menu and i'm going to click replace data at selected cell so that i can import the data directly into the spreadsheet that i'm looking at now click import data and as you can see google sheets instantly imported the data from my csv into this existing google spreadsheet this is very useful for when you're trying to create new reports or update reports or dashboards now again if you're wondering how to actually convert a csv file into a brand new google spreadsheet i'm going to also show you how to do this and there's a couple different ways that you can do that again you can click file import upload select the file double-click the file and then when given these options you can also select a different option and if you leave the selection on create new spreadsheet and then click import data google sheets will create you a brand new file from your csv file but it will now be in google sheets format so i'm going to click open now and here we have a brand new google spreadsheet now another way that you can do this is directly through google drive so i'm going to go to my google drive i'm going to go to settings and then i'm making sure that convert uploaded files to google docs editor format i'm making sure that this is checked because when i upload a csv file directly to google drive it will automatically convert it into google sheets format now if i do not select this when you upload a csv it will simply upload in normal csv format kind of like a backup of your csv you're simply storing the file but i have the box checked because i want to convert it now i'm going to click new file upload i'm going to double click the file that i want to upload and you'll see that google sheets says uploading and now it says one upload complete but when i click on the file you'll see that it opens in google sheets format now if you want to learn how to export or download a csv from google sheets check out my video on exporting a csv from google sheets and if you want to learn more about how to import and export data i've linked the article for this video below