How to properly export and import product names with special characters?

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

Issue: Exported Shopify product CSV corrupted special characters in titles (e.g., ®, ™ showing as ® or â„¢). Re-importing the edited CSV created duplicate products instead of updating, but only for items with special characters.

Cause: Spreadsheet software opened/saved the CSV with the wrong character encoding. Special characters require UTF-8 (a character encoding that correctly represents international/special symbols).

Recommended fix:

  • Open the exported CSV using a tool that defaults to UTF-8 (e.g., Google Sheets).
  • Make edits directly there.
  • Download as CSV via File > Download > Comma Separated Values (.csv) to preserve UTF-8.
  • Test on a small subset before full import.

Outcome: Original poster confirmed the UTF-8/Google Sheets approach resolved the problem. No further issues or open questions were raised.

Notes: Shopify updates products during import based on the Handle column; encoding issues likely altered how text was interpreted, leading to mismatches and duplicates. The included screenshot is illustrative but not required to understand the fix.

Summarized with AI on January 8. AI used: gpt-5.
1

Hi All,

I am so desperate for help, please. Thank you in advance.

So I have a bunch of products with special characters on their product name, an example is Jazz Band® Hearing Protectors. I need to export them all so I can bulk-edit the selling price.

In the exported file, the product name becomes like this: Jazz Band® Hearing Protectors. Well some of them become more special and become like this â„¢. Then I tried to import using the same CSV file after editing the selling price, thinking that it would just edit the selling price since there is a “Handle” column and I checked the overwrite products checkbox. but unfortunately, it created a new product, so I have now Jazz Band® Hearing Protectors and Jazz Band® Hearing Protectors**.**

I am pretty sure that I checked the overwrite product checkbox because when I check the same file using the other products without any special character, the selling price are all updated properly without duplicates. Please see my screenshot, the 3rd product is in the same CSV file I exported but it is updated properly and do not have duplicate created. Only those with special characters created a duplicate product with special characters during the export/import.

Ann07_0-1704901794988.png
Ann07_0-1704901794988.png587×201 21.7 KB

Can someone help me on how to properly export a file that will not transform ® ™ and the like to a something like special characters or if not possible, can you help me to properly import back the file that I exported with those special character without creating a new products. Please note that I am only bulk editing them, no purpose of creating a new product here. Any help will be appreciated.

Thank you so much and Happy New Year, all!

2

Hey there Ann,

This was most likely due to the encoding/character set setting in your spreadsheet software. You’d normally want to use UTF-8 encoding when opening CSV files for those characters to get displayed correctly.

If you’re not sure how to set the encoding/character set in your spreadsheet software, you could try just using Google Sheets to open the CSV file which uses UTF-8 by default.

So you could do something like this:

  1. Open the CSV file in Google Sheets (this will create a Google Sheets spreadsheet).

  2. Do the edits directly in Google Sheets.

  3. In Google Sheets, download a new CSV file after making your edits via File > Download > Comma Separate Values (.csv) option, which you can then use to import back into Shopify.

You might want to test it out on a handful of products first to make sure it works as expected.

1 Like
3

Hi Jonathan,

Thank you for your reply, it helped!

Thank you

1 Like