Are Windows line endings (CRLF) breaking my Shopify import?
No. We tested it on a real store: LF and CRLF both imported cleanly and identically.
What you are seeing
Your import is failing and a forum post has told you to convert the file to Unix line endings.
There is no error message for this one. That is the problem, not an omission on this page — the import reports success and the damage is only visible if you go looking for it.
Why it happens
This is advice that circulates and does not hold. We imported two files identical apart from their line terminator. Both produced 3 products and 3 SKUs, all active, with no format error, no split rows and no stray characters in the body text.
The reason it feels true is that files with CRLF often come from Windows Excel, and Excel does other things to a CSV that genuinely do break imports — dropping leading zeros from SKUs, reformatting numbers, and changing the encoding. The line endings are the visible symptom of an Excel round-trip, not the cause of the failure.
How to fix it
- Stop converting line endings and look for the real cause. It is usually the encoding, a handle collision, or a missing required column on a continuation row.
- If the file has been through Excel, check your identifier columns for lost leading zeros and for numbers that have become scientific notation. Those are silent and they are real.
- Run the file through a pre-flight check that names the blocker instead of guessing.
Where this came from
We broke a real Shopify store on purpose to answer these questions, and kept what it said. Nothing on this page is quoted from documentation.
- Two files identical apart from their line terminator both imported cleanly — 3 products and 3 SKUs each, all active, no format error, no split rows and no stray characters in the body text.
What we did not measure. Tested with a small file (3 products) on one store. We are confident about line endings; we did not test whether a mixed-terminator file behaves the same way.
Observed 2026-09-04. The store this was measured on has since been deleted, so these answers are an archive rather than something we re-run — we would rather tell you the date than imply it is checked continuously.
Check your file before you upload it
The Pre-Flight Report reads your supplier file and names every blocker, with the row it is on, before you go near an importer. It is free, it needs no account, and it does not send your file to a model.