Excel does not honor the delimiter setting for reading or writing CSV files

When saving/opening CSV files in Excel, the default separator is a semicolon ;, as I need it to be a comma , I tried to change it by changing the Language and Regional settings following several other posts about this issue (i.e. How to get Excel to interpret the comma as a default delimiter in CSV files?).

However, after changing the List separator in those settings, my Excel keeps saving CSV files with a semicolon. Is it because Excel was installed while my list separator was set as a semicolon? or is there another setting I am missing here?

I found the problem. My decimal symbol in the Regional settings was also a comma (European) so, even when my List separator was a comma, the CSV was saved with semicolons. Now I changed my decimal symbol to a point and now the CSV file is created correctly with commas as separators. I tested this twice and now know that there must be an exception: if the decimal symbol is a comma, then the list separator will be a semicolon even is set otherwise.

For saving

You need to adjust the list separator in language and regional settings prior to saving the file -

For opening

Go to Data - Get External Data - From Text

select the file

Select delimited, press next

and select the delimiter comma

Click finish

Or, pull it in and then use text to columns see here