Find and Replace in Excel: how it works

With Home > Find & Select > Replace, or Ctrl + H, you change a word or character in every cell at once. To find without replacing, use Ctrl + F.

Try the first exercises for freeIn the lesson Cleaning up data with the ribbon

What does Find and Replace do?

With Replace, you change a word, number or character in all the cells at once, instead of cell by cell. You type what Excel should look for and what goes in its place, and with Replace All it happens in one go. Excel tells you how many replacements it made.

Find works in the same window, without changing anything: Excel jumps to the next cell that contains your search term. You'll find both under Home > Find & Select. On Windows, Ctrl + F opens Find and Ctrl + H opens Replace.

When do you use Find and Replace?

A typo that's in a hundred cells, such as Febuary instead of February.
Replacing an old product name everywhere with the new one.
Getting rid of double spaces: replace two spaces with one, until Excel finds nothing more.
Replacing commas in numbers from a European export with points, so that Excel turns them into real numbers.

Replacing, step by step

This is how to go about it:

Select the range in which Excel should replace. If you don't select anything, it works on the whole sheet.
Choose Home > Find & Select > Replace, or press Ctrl + H.
Under Find what, type what has to go, and under Replace with, what goes in its place.
Click Find Next to see first what Excel finds, or click Replace All straight away.
Excel tells you how many replacements it made. If it's not right, undo it with Ctrl + Z.

Where it often goes wrong

Replace All also works inside formulas: if you replace a 2 with a 3, B2 becomes B3 as well. So select the range with your data first.
An asterisk is a wildcard: * stands for any characters. To really replace an asterisk, type ~*.

Want to try it yourself?
Practise this in the lesson Cleaning up data with the ribbon. The first exercises are free.

Try the first exercises for free

Frequently asked questions

Can I search the whole workbook?

Yes. Click Options and under Within choose Workbook instead of Sheet.