Fix é, ’ and � in a CSV Before You Import Your Contact List

é and ’ in a CSV mean a UTF-8 file was read as Windows-1252, and you can get the original text back. � means the opposite: a Windows-1252 file was read as UTF-8, and that copy has lost the letter. So the fix depends on which one you see. For the first, re-open the file as UTF-8 or reverse the mis-read. For the second, go back to the original export. Then save as UTF-8 before importing, and strip invisible characters from the email column while you are at it.

The free CSV encoding fixer does both directions in your browser and lists every cell it changed. Here is what is going on, so you can check it yourself.

Which problem do you have?

You see	Should be	What happened	Recoverable?
Renée, Müller	Renée, Müller	UTF-8 read as Windows-1252	Yes
don’t, 2019–2024	don’t, 2019–2024	Same, on curly quotes and dashes	Yes
Ren�e, M�ller	Renée, Müller	Windows-1252 read as UTF-8	Not from this copy
Renée	Renée	Mis-read twice	Usually, by reversing twice
A blank first column header, or email	email	A byte-order mark shown as text	Yes, remove it

The first row is the most common in contact lists. In UTF-8, é is two bytes, C3 A9. Windows-1252, the old Windows default for Western languages, maps every byte to its own character, so it shows those two bytes as Ã and ©. Nothing is lost: converting the characters back to bytes and reading them as UTF-8 restores the text. The WHATWG Encoding Standard has the Windows-1252 table, and RFC 3629 the UTF-8 byte rules.

The third row is different. A Windows-1252 file stores é as one byte, E9, which on its own isn't valid UTF-8. A program reading it as UTF-8 puts in � (U+FFFD) and discards the byte. Once that copy is saved, the letter is gone from it.

How it usually happens

1. A CRM, lead database or shop exports a UTF-8 CSV without a byte-order mark.
2. Someone double-clicks it. Excel on Windows opens it with the local code page, usually Windows-1252, and names become Renée.
3. They tidy a column and save. Excel's "CSV (Comma delimited)" format writes Windows-1252, so the garbled text is now stored as real characters.
4. The file is imported into a sending tool that expects UTF-8, and any original accented letters that were saved as single bytes come out as �.

Mac and Windows users trading files, and copy-paste between a browser and a spreadsheet, produce the same faults.

How to fix it

If you still have the original export: open it the right way and you never see the problem.

• In Excel, use Data > Get Data > From File > From Text/CSV, and set the file origin to 65001: Unicode (UTF-8). Microsoft's UTF-8 CSV article (read 2 November 2026) describes this route and says a UTF-8 file "saved with BOM (Byte Order Mark)" opens normally.
• When you save, choose CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited), not plain CSV.
• In Google Sheets, File > Import reads UTF-8 correctly, and File > Download > CSV writes UTF-8.

If you only have the garbled copy:

• For é-type text, reverse the mis-read. The CSV encoding fixer converts each run of such characters back to bytes and only keeps the result when it is valid UTF-8, which correctly accented text almost never is by chance, so names that were already right are left alone.
• For �, re-export from the source. If that's impossible, the letters have to be fixed by hand.

Then check the result: search the file for Ã, â€ and � before you import. If none remain, the encoding is clean.

Invisible characters in the email column

A second, quieter problem: characters you can't see. Zero-width spaces, no-break spaces and byte-order marks come along when addresses are copied from web pages, PDFs, chat apps or another spreadsheet. ana@example.com with a zero-width space at the end looks fine in a cell, then fails a sending tool's import, a CRM's duplicate check or a syntax check, and two copies of the same address don't match as duplicates.

The encoding fixer removes them from the email column and leaves other columns as they are. If an address still fails after that, run the file through the email list health check for real syntax errors and typo domains.

Why it matters for outreach

• Personalization. Hi Renée, in a cold email tells the reader the message came from a spreadsheet. If your template uses company or city fields, the same applies there. The mail merge field checker shows how each row will render.
• Imports. HubSpot's import file requirements (updated 11 September 2026) say files must "be UTF-8 encoded if the file includes foreign language characters". Most sending tools assume the same.
• Verification. Garbled or invisible characters in the address make a verifier report it as invalid syntax rather than check the mailbox. Fix the encoding first, then verify.

Where SimpleVerifier fits

Once the file reads right, upload it on the verify page to check which addresses exist; the first 100 checks are free with a Google sign-in. Pro is $39 a month with the first 100,000 checks a month at full speed, then slower, never cut off. See pricing.