In Excel: use File ▸ Save As (or Save a Copy), pick "CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) (*.csv)" as the file type, and save — only the ACTIVE worksheet is exported, and formulas are replaced by their current values.
On this page7
Click the worksheet you want to export — CSV saves only the active sheet.
File ▸ Save As, choose "CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) (*.csv)".
Confirm the prompt about keeping only the active sheet.
Or skip Excel entirely: drop the .xlsx into the converter above and download the CSV.
What this does
CSV is plain text: one row per line, cells separated by a delimiter. Saving as CSV therefore throws away everything that is not a value — formatting, formulas, charts, extra sheets, and data types. That is usually the point (maximum compatibility), but it means the conversion is one-way: keep the original .xlsx if you still need the workbook features. Before you build the flow, confirm the workbook is stored where the connector can reach it and that the data has the shape the action expects. A flow that cannot find its file or table fails rather than guessing. For “power automate excel to csv keep dates in order”, the reliable version is a short checking loop, not just the first command that appears to work. Run it on a deliberately small range first, watch how the affected cells change, and only then apply the same setup to the full sheet. When this is a ribbon command, the selection matters more than the button: confirm the range, apply the command, then spot-check the output before saving. That is what makes a data step that keeps your analysis trustworthy useful in real work: repeatable, auditable, and not dependent on memory or luck.
A worked example
A workbook has the active sheet Orders with 200 rows and a Pivot sheet. Saving as CSV UTF-8 produces orders.csv with exactly the 200 rows of Orders as text — the pivot sheet, the currency formatting, and the =SUM() row all disappear; the SUM cell contains its last calculated number instead. CSV is the lingua franca of data import — CRMs, banks, databases, and scripts all accept it. Exporting cleanly (UTF-8, right delimiter) avoids broken umlauts and shifted columns on the receiving side. Give failures somewhere to go: a notification or a log entry when a run fails means a broken connection is noticed the same day, not when the data turns out to be missing.
In Google Sheets
Power Automate's Excel Online (Business) actions work on Excel workbooks in OneDrive for Business or SharePoint; a Google Sheets file needs the separate Google Sheets connector, whose actions and requirements differ. Keep this page bookmarked for the next time the same question comes up. Better still, repeat the steps once in your own workbook — doing it yourself is what turns a copied answer into something you remember. Treat “power automate excel to csv keep dates in order” as a small system rather than a one-off step: a trigger, an action, the permissions it runs with and a failure path. When all four are clear, the flow is easy to hand over and easy to fix.
Common mistakes
- Picking the legacy "CSV (Comma delimited)" instead of CSV UTF-8, which mangles ä, é, and other non-ASCII characters.
- Expecting all sheets in the file — CSV holds exactly one.
- Re-opening the CSV and being surprised formulas are gone; they were exported as values.
- Leading zeros (007) lost when the CSV is re-opened in Excel — import the column as text instead.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my exported CSV show semicolons instead of commas?
Excel uses your system list separator. On many European locales that is ";". The converter above lets you pick comma, semicolon, or tab explicitly.
How do I export every sheet of the workbook?
Save each sheet separately (CSV is single-sheet), or use a script/Power Query to batch-export.
Why do my dates look like numbers (e.g. 45443) in the CSV?
Date cells store serial numbers; some exports emit the raw serial. Use our date serial converter, or format the column as text dates before exporting.