Find & Replace in Excel

Occasionally, you'll have a word or number you need to find somewhere in your spreadsheet, but you're not sure where it is. Excel’s Find and Replace commands scan a worksheet for labels and values with just a few clicks of the mouse.

Find Text

The Find feature makes it very easy to find specific words and values in a worksheet.

1. Click the Find & Select button on the Home tab.
2. Select Find.
   

   Press Ctrl + F.

   The Find tab of the Find and Replace dialog box appears.

3. Type the text you want to find in the Find what box.
4. Click Find Next.

   Excel jumps to the first occurrence of the word, phrase, or value that you entered.

5. Click the Find Next button again to move on to other occurrences.

   Click Find All to find the cell location of all instances at once.

6. Click Close when you're finished.
   

Replace Text

Now, if you have a word that appears throughout a spreadsheet and needs to be updated, don't update it cell by cell, use Replace instead.

1. Click the Find & Select button on the Home tab.
2. Select Replace.
   

   Press Ctrl + H.

   The Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box appears.

3. Type the text you want to replace in the Find what box.
4. Type the replacement text in the Replace with box.
5. Click the Find Next button.
   

   The first instance is selected.

6. Click any of the following:
   • Replace All: Replace every occurrence of the item.
   • Replace: Replace the selected item.
   • Find All: Find all instances of the item.
   • Find Next: Find the next instance of the item.
7. Click Close when you're finished.
   

Advanced Find and Replace

You can use Excel’s search options to change how Excel searches the workbook.

1. Click the Find & Select button.
2. Select Find or Replace.
3. Click the Options button.
   

   Additional options appear, as described in following table.

4. Complete the search / replace as you normally would.
5. Select the desired advanced Find and Replace options.
   

Advanced Find and Replace Options