If you’re not familiar with importing data using DBeaver, then I encourage you to view my previous blog here.

When importing data, sometimes you receive data that isn’t in csv format. The delimiter is tabbed, barred or others. DBeaver’s csv driver can be customized to handle these delimiters and I will show you how.

Connecting to the delimited File

Right-click your database connection (or anywhere if your connections are empty), click Create and then click Connection.

Connecting to delimited File connection

Make sure the All tab is selected on the left and scroll down to CSV. Click Next.

Connecting to delimited File all csv

Click Browse… and select the folder where your csv file is that you saved from Excel. You’re selecting a folder here, not a file.

Connecting to delimited File select folder

At this point, to modify the settings, click Edit Driver Settings, then click the Connection properties tab in the lower half of the window.

Connecting to delimited File edit driver settings

Here you have several options:

charset – The character set of your data.

fileExtension – The extension of the file you’re trying to import.

quotechar – The character used in text fields to denote strings, if it exists.

separator – This is the delimiter used to separate columns.

suppressHeaders – False to include Headers, True to exclude Headers.

In my example I am using a file called delimted_data.txt, the delimited character is a vertical bar | and I will have headers in the file.

Connecting to delimited File example

Change the Connection Properties to match below:

Connecting to delimited File change connection properties

Once the properties are set, click OK and then click Finish.

At this point you can select the data from the file like you would any other imported data.

Connecting to delimited File select data

If you’re dealing with TAB delimited data, you can simply cut and paste a TAB from a text editor into the Connection Properties like below:

Connecting to delimited File TAB delimited data

If you’re looking for other ways to import files into DBeaver, check out my other blogs:

PostgreSQL Updating Data Using CSV File with DBeaver

PostgreSQL Excel Data Imports Using DBeaver