diff --git a/packages/web/package.json b/packages/web/package.json
index 20a857be..98975086 100644
--- a/packages/web/package.json
+++ b/packages/web/package.json
@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@
     "diff": "^5.0.0",
     "diff2html": "^3.4.13",
     "file-selector": "^0.2.4",
+    "iconv-lite": "^0.6.3",
     "js-yaml": "^4.1.0",
     "json-stable-stringify": "^1.0.1",
     "localforage": "^1.9.0",
diff --git a/packages/web/src/utility/openElectronFile.ts b/packages/web/src/utility/openElectronFile.ts
index 6cf8ec36..f5b341ee 100644
--- a/packages/web/src/utility/openElectronFile.ts
+++ b/packages/web/src/utility/openElectronFile.ts
@@ -55,11 +55,16 @@ function getFileEncoding(filePath, fs) {
   if (!e && buf[0] === 0xef && buf[1] === 0xbb && buf[2] === 0xbf) e = 'utf8';
   if (!e && buf[0] === 0xfe && buf[1] === 0xff) e = 'utf16be';
   if (!e && buf[0] === 0xff && buf[1] === 0xfe) e = 'utf16le';
-  if (!e) e = 'ascii';
+  if (!e) e = 'utf8';
 
   return e;
 }
 
+function decodeFile(buf: Uint8Array, enc: string) {
+  const iconv = window.require('iconv-lite');
+  return iconv.decode(buf, enc);
+}
+
 function openElectronJsonLinesFile(filePath, parsed) {
   openNewTab({
     title: parsed.name,
@@ -115,7 +120,8 @@ export function openElectronFileCore(filePath, extensions) {
 
   if (nameLower.endsWith('.sql')) {
     const encoding = getFileEncoding(filePath, fs);
-    const data = fs.readFileSync(filePath, { encoding });
+    const buf = fs.readFileSync(filePath);
+    const data = decodeFile(buf, encoding);
 
     newQuery({
       title: parsed.name,