PPSSPP isn't creating an .ini file in the Cheats folder

[LunaMoo]

No it's not normal, in fact it doesn't make much sense, if the import worked it would create ini file, otherwise it could not show any cheats aka not work at all.

Maybe your system or file browser you used just hides ini files and the one you created manually had a typo in the name or double extension?(That's potentially common mistake on windows due to it hiding known extensions by default.)