Automatic detected delimiter and encoding in csv files [GOT CREATED]

Feature Requests (done)
1

The idea is:

Hi,
we search a solution it to be possible to automatically detect the encoding and delimiter in csv files as it happens with other platforms and languages.

Nowadays, it is possible to manually indicate this information, but we do not always know what we are receiving. So for now, we use Python to try to find out by trying

  1. Read the file in UTF-8
  2. Check in Python if there are invalid characters in the read data
  3. If it doesn’t exist, everything is ok, if it does, read again but in Latin-1

A native solution would be more correct and there would be no need to read the same file twice

Thanks

I think it would be beneficial to add this because:

It was not necessary to know this information beforehand.
It avoided multiple readings of the file.

2

Good news — a manual encoding option for CSV files was released in n8n v1.43.0 via #9392, so the encoding side is now configurable.

The automatic delimiter detection is a more complex add — there’s no universal “right answer” without sampling enough lines and handling edge cases (quoted commas, mixed line endings, etc.). With AI being more widely accessible now, one practical approach is to send a sample of the file to an AI agent (or a small Code node prompt) and have it decide. Closing this one — feel free to open a fresh thread if you’d like to discuss the AI-driven approach further.