Convert GBK and GB18030 files to UTF-8

Where GBK files still come from

• Product data, order exports and invoices from Chinese suppliers – Excel on a Simplified Chinese Windows saves a plain CSV (comma delimited) in GBK.
• Files saved as “ANSI” in Notepad on a Chinese Windows. Before Windows 10 version 1903 that was the default.
• Exports from Chinese banks, tax and accounting software that have to go into a system that only accepts UTF-8.
• Old websites and forum archives (Discuz! in its GBK edition), novels as TXT, Chinese comments in source code. Java before version 18 also wrote files in GBK on a Chinese Windows.
• Old subtitle files that show garbage on a TV – see fix subtitle encoding.

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北京市朝阳区 电话
数据编码 文件

How to convert

1. Drag the file into the box above or choose it – CSV, TXT, SRT, JSON and other text formats work.
2. Mojibuster reads the file as GB18030 (which contains GBK and GB2312), Big5 and UTF-8 and keeps the reading that produces real Chinese. The result shows which code page it used.
3. Wrong guess? Click Read as … in the result to re-read the file in another code page.
4. Click Download to save the UTF-8 file. For CSV files keep Save with BOM on so Excel opens them correctly.

How to recognize GBK at a glance

• 中 is D6 D0 in GBK and shows as ÖÐ in a Western program; in UTF-8 it is E4 B8 AD.
• 文 is CE C4 and shows as ÎÄ.
• 你好 is C4 E3 BA C3 and shows as ÄãºÃ.

Pairs of accented capitals like Ö, Î and Ä almost always mean GBK text displayed as Windows-1252. The bytes are all still there, so the file converts without loss. Symbols like ¤¤¤å point to Big5 instead. Rare characters like 浣犲ソ are the opposite case: UTF-8 read as GBK – paste that text into the box and Mojibuster turns it back; see what mojibake is.

GB2312, GBK and GB18030

GB2312 has about 6,700 common characters, GBK extends it to more than 20,000, and GB18030 is the national standard that covers all of Unicode (the current edition is GB18030-2022). GB18030 contains everything in GBK, so Mojibuster reads with GB18030 and rare characters convert correctly as well.

Converting on the command line

For many files or a script, standard tools work. On Linux, macOS and Git Bash: iconv -f GB18030 -t UTF-8 in.txt > out.txt. Name the source as GB18030 rather than GBK so rare characters don’t abort the conversion.

In PowerShell 7: Get-Content in.txt -Encoding 936 | Set-Content out.txt -Encoding utf8. Windows PowerShell 5.1 only knows Default, which is the system code page – GBK only on a Chinese Windows. More in fix PowerShell encoding. These commands don’t guess the code page; pick the wrong one and you get new garbage. Mojibuster checks the options for you.

What can’t be restored

Characters that have already become ? or 锟斤拷 are gone: the information was lost when the file was saved. 锟斤拷 is what two UTF-8 replacement characters (EF BF BD) look like when read as GBK – a sure sign the file was converted wrongly and saved before. Mojibuster shows how many such spots the file contains; why they appear is explained under question marks instead of characters.

Frequently asked questions

More guides

• Mojibake fixer for all kinds of text Repair garbled characters in text and files.
• Fix CSV encoding Repair special characters in CSV exports and save as UTF-8.
• Excel characters When Excel shows é instead of é after opening a CSV.
• Fix UTF-8 Remove mojibake from databases, emails and websites.
• Fix subtitles Repair SRT and VTT subtitles with broken characters.
• What is mojibake? Meaning, origin and causes of garbled text.
• Double-encoded When é first became é and then é.
• é instead of é Table of é, ñ, ü and more – and what’s behind them.
• Apostrophes & quotes ’, “, – and … instead of apostrophes, quotes and dashes.
• ANSI → UTF-8 Convert old ANSI files to UTF-8 without losing accented characters.
• Question marks instead of characters ? or � instead of letters – what can be rescued and what can’t.
• ‚Äô instead of ’ Mojibake from a Mac: ’, é – and é from the Windows console.
• URL-encoded characters %C3%A9 instead of é – make percent codes from links and forms readable.
• WordPress & database Repair SQL dumps and WordPress content showing é instead of é.
• MySQL & phpMyAdmin Set the charset of table, connection and import correctly.
• Outlook Fix broken characters in e-mails and contact exports.
• PowerShell -Encoding, console and script files in PowerShell 5.1 and 7.
• Python & pandas encoding in read_csv, to_csv, open() and requests.
• Notepad++ Choose or convert the encoding – the crucial difference.
• Customer data & CRM Repair customer lists from CRM and ERP without uploading them.
• Shift_JIS → UTF-8 Convert Shift_JIS (CP932) and EUC-JP files from Japan to UTF-8.
• EUC-KR → UTF-8 Convert EUC-KR and CP949 files from Korea to UTF-8.
• Big5 → UTF-8 Convert Big5 (CP950, HKSCS) files from Taiwan or Hong Kong to UTF-8.
• Windows-1251 → UTF-8 Convert old Russian files (cp1251, KOI8-R, CP866) to UTF-8.
• Windows-1256 to UTF-8 Converts old Arabic files (cp1256, Arabic ANSI) to UTF-8.
• Windows-1253 to UTF-8 Converts old Greek files (cp1253, ISO-8859-7) to UTF-8.
• Windows-1255 to UTF-8 Converts old Hebrew files (cp1255, ISO-8859-8) to UTF-8.
• Windows-1250 → UTF-8 Converts old Polish and Central European files to UTF-8.
• Big5, GBK, Shift_JIS → UTF-8 Convert old Chinese, Japanese and Korean files to UTF-8.
• Hindi, Tamil, Bengali text Hindi, Tamil or Bengali text shows à¤, à® or à¦? Repair it here.
• Kruti Dev to Unicode Hindi typed in Kruti Dev shows up as fgUnh? Convert it to Unicode.
• Preeti to Unicode Nepali typed in Preeti shows up as g]kfn? Convert it to Unicode.
• Bijoy to Unicode Bengali typed in Bijoy shows up as evsjv? Convert it to Unicode.
• For businesses & data protection officers How Mojibuster protects data – and how to verify it yourself.