Find in Excel: Search Cells, Data, and Formulas

To find text, numbers, or other content in Microsoft Excel for Microsoft 365 on Windows, press Ctrl+F, enter what you want to locate, and choose Find Next or Find All. You can also use Home > Find & Select > Find. To search for a substring with a worksheet formula instead, use the FIND function.

Open Find and search a worksheet

The Find command is useful when a worksheet contains too many rows or columns to scan by eye. Open the Find tab of the Find and Replace dialog with Ctrl+F, type a word, number, or other search text in Find what, and select Find Next to jump to the next match. Keep selecting Find Next to move through additional results. Press Esc to close the dialog when you are done.

Choose Find All to display a list of matches rather than moving through them one at a time. The list can help you see which cells contain the search text; selecting a result takes you to that cell. This is especially useful when checking a long inventory, contact list, or report for repeated entries.

Excel looks for content in cells, not just what is currently visible on the screen. A match may be part of a longer text value: searching for “north” can find “Northwest.” Find is generally not a substitute for sorting or filtering when you want to analyze or work with every matching record. For that, a table filter can keep the relevant rows visible together.

Choose where and what Excel searches

The Find dialog has options that control the search. Select Options if the settings are hidden, then check the scope and content choices before searching. For a small, predictable search, the defaults may be enough; for a workbook-wide search or a search for formula text, changing these settings can prevent missed results.

Within: Choose Sheet to search the active worksheet or Workbook to search across sheets in the workbook.
Search: Choose By Rows or By Columns to set the order Excel follows through the cells.
Look in: Choose whether to search Formulas, Values, Notes, or Comments, depending on the available options and what you need to locate.
Match case: Turn this on when capitalization matters, such as distinguishing “ID” from “id.”
Match entire cell contents: Turn this on to find a cell whose complete content matches the search text, rather than a cell that merely contains it as part of a longer entry.

For example, searching for “204” with Match entire cell contents turned off can find 204 inside a longer cell entry such as “Invoice 204.” With that option on, the full cell content must be 204. Similarly, selecting Workbook rather than Sheet matters when you know a value is somewhere in the file but do not know which worksheet contains it.

Look in affects what Excel compares. When you select Formulas, Excel can find text in a formula itself, such as a cell reference or a text string written inside the formula. Values searches calculated cell results instead. This distinction matters when a cell displays “Complete” because a formula produced that result: a search for the word may behave differently depending on whether you search formulas or values. Format can also be used to search for cells with particular formatting, though it is best to clear an old format criterion if a later text search unexpectedly finds nothing.

Search for partial text with wildcards

In the Find dialog, wildcards can stand in for characters. They are useful when you know only part of a name or need to match a pattern. The main wildcard characters are:

Asterisk (*): Matches any number of characters, including none. Searching for east* can find entries such as “east,” “eastern,” or “east side.”
Question mark (?): Matches one character. Searching for R?D can match “RED” or “ROD,” but not “ROAD.”
Tilde (~): Makes Excel treat a wildcard as a literal character. Use ~* to search for an actual asterisk, or ~? to search for an actual question mark.

Wildcards are not always the right choice. If you need to find the literal text “east*” and do not escape the asterisk, Excel may treat it as a pattern and return more than the exact entry. When results seem too broad, check for wildcard characters and the Match entire cell contents setting.

Find command versus the FIND function

The Find command is an interactive search tool: it takes you to matching cells. The FIND function is different. It returns the character position where one text string begins inside another, and it is useful when a formula needs to test or extract text. FIND is case-sensitive and does not accept wildcards. If the text is absent, it returns a #VALUE! error.

With the text “concatenate” in A2, the formula =FIND("cat",A2) returns 4, because “cat” begins at the fourth character. This makes the function useful for locating a separator or a known word in a larger text value. The optional third argument can set a starting position for the search, which is helpful when a string contains the same text more than once.

SEARCH is a related function that is not case-sensitive and does allow wildcards. With “concatenate” in A2, =SEARCH("CAT",A2) returns 4 even though the search text is uppercase. These functions return a position, not the matching text itself. If you use their result in a larger formula, account for the possibility that a search term is absent; otherwise an error can flow into later calculations.

Replace matching content carefully

When you want to change matches rather than just locate them, press Ctrl+H to open the Replace tab. Enter the original text in Find what and the new text in Replace with. Choose Find Next and Replace to review changes individually, or use Replace All when you have checked the search scope and are confident that every match should change.

Replacing text can affect more than one cell if Within is set to Workbook. It can also change part of a longer entry: replacing “Ltd” might change that sequence wherever it appears, not only in a company name you had in mind. If the difference matters, use Match entire cell contents or review the matches one at a time. A search can also be configured to look in formulas, so replacing there may alter formulas, not merely displayed text. Check Look in before using Replace All.

There is no general undo shortcut for macros, but ordinary Find and Replace changes can usually be undone with Ctrl+Z. Even so, for a large or important replacement, save a separate copy of the workbook first. A copy gives you a straightforward way to recover if the replacement changed more than expected.

Common reasons a search misses a match

If Excel reports no results, first confirm that you are searching the intended sheet or the entire workbook. Then check Look in, Match case, Match entire cell contents, and any saved Format criterion. A search configured for formulas will not behave like one configured for values, and an exact-cell search will not find a word embedded in a sentence.

Also check the data itself. A cell may contain a leading or trailing space, a different punctuation mark, or a value stored in a form you did not expect. Numbers and dates can be especially confusing: a date may be stored as a serial number but shown with a date format. If searching for a date does not work as expected, try a recognizable part of its displayed text and consider whether the Look in choice is appropriate.

For formula results, remember that the cell may show a calculated answer while its formula contains different text. For example, a formula can display a department name by looking it up elsewhere. Search Values when you want the result; search Formulas when you want to inspect the formula text. If you need to locate rows based on a condition and then work with them, use filters or a lookup formula rather than repeatedly searching manually.

Keyboard shortcuts and other Excel versions

On Windows, Ctrl+F opens Find, Ctrl+H opens Replace, and Esc closes the dialog. On a Mac, use Command+F for Find and Command+Shift+H for Replace in Excel for Mac; keyboard behavior can vary with the macOS keyboard settings. The ribbon route on Windows is Home > Find & Select > Find or Replace. Excel for Mac places the commands on its Home ribbon as well, though ribbon layout and dialog details can differ by release.

In Excel for the web, Ctrl+F generally opens Excel’s in-workbook search experience rather than searching only the browser page. The web interface and available search options can differ from the desktop dialog. If a search option described here is not shown, use the available search controls or open the workbook in the desktop app for the fuller Find and Replace interface.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I find a word in all Excel sheets?
Press Ctrl+F, select Options if needed, set Within to Workbook, enter the word, and choose Find All or Find Next. Check the other options, such as Match case, if the results are incomplete.

How do I find an exact match in Excel?
Open Find, select Options, and turn on Match entire cell contents. Excel will then look for cells whose whole content matches the search text, rather than cells that contain it as part of a longer entry.

Can Excel find text inside a formula?
Yes. In the Find dialog, set Look in to Formulas to search formula text. Choose Values when you want to search calculated results instead. The options determine whether Excel compares the expression or the result.

Why does Ctrl+F not find a value I can see?
Check the search scope, Look in setting, case and exact-match options, and any format condition. The visible content may be a formula result, formatted date, or text with extra spaces, so the underlying cell content may not match what you typed.

What is the difference between FIND and SEARCH in Excel?
Both functions return the position of text within another text string. FIND is case-sensitive and does not use wildcards; SEARCH ignores case and accepts wildcards. Neither is the same as Ctrl+F, which searches cells interactively.

Try it: the Formula Explainer: paste any formula and see each function and reference in plain English.

More in Formulas & functions

Sources: Function behaviour and menu paths: Microsoft Support documentation for Excel. Method & sources

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