Open Find & Replace with Ctrl+H

The fastest way to find and replace text in Excel is to press Ctrl+H on your keyboard. This opens the Find & Replace dialog box, which is where you do all the work. On a Mac, use Cmd+H instead.

You can also reach Find & Replace through the menu: click the Home tab, then in the Editing group on the right side, click Find & Select, then choose Replace. But the keyboard shortcut is much faster once you use it a few times.

The dialog box that appears has two main fields: Find What and Replace With. You type what you want to search for in the first field, and what you want to replace it with in the second field.

Key Takeaways

  • Press Ctrl+H to open Find & Replace, type the text you want to find and what to replace it with, then click Replace All to change every instance at once.
  • Click Find All first if you want to see how many matches exist before you replace them, so you can catch mistakes before they spread.
  • Use the Options button to search only in specific columns, match whole words only, or search by cell format instead of text.
  • Replace All changes every match in the entire sheet unless you select a range first — select your range before opening Find & Replace if you only want to change part of your data.
  • You can undo a Replace All by pressing Ctrl+Z when ready after, which reverses all the changes at once.

Type Your Search Term and Replacement Text

In the Find What field, type the exact text you want to search for. If you are looking for a phone number format like 555-1234, type that exact format. If you want to find cells that contain "John" anywhere in the text, just type John.

In the Replace With field, type what you want to put in its place. If you are replacing a phone number format with a different one, type the new format here. If you want to delete something entirely, leave the Replace With field empty and click Replace All — Excel will remove that text from every cell.

Be careful with common words. If you search for "the" and replace it with "that", you will change "the" inside other words too — "theater" becomes "thatater". Use the Options button to turn on Match entire cell contents or Match case if you need to be more precise.

Use Find All to Check Before You Replace

Before you click Replace All, click the Find All button to see every cell that matches your search. Excel shows you a list of all the matches it found, and you can click any one to jump to that cell and see it in context. This catches mistakes before they spread through your whole sheet.

If the list looks wrong — if it found matches you did not expect — close the dialog, fix your search term, and try again. Once you are confident the matches are correct, then you can replace them.

Finding all matches first takes an extra 30 seconds but saves you from having to undo a Replace All that went wrong. If you do make a mistake, press Ctrl+Z when ready after to undo every replacement at once.

Click Replace All to Change Everything at Once

Once you are sure your search term and replacement text are correct, click the Replace All button. Excel changes every match in your sheet when ready and tells you how many replacements it made. A message appears saying something like "All done. 47 replacements made."

Replace All changes your entire sheet unless you selected a specific range of cells before you opened Find & Replace. If you only want to replace text in certain columns or rows, select that range first, then open Find & Replace, then click Replace All. Excel will only search within the cells you selected.

If you want to replace one match at a time instead of all at once, click the Replace button instead. Excel highlights the first match, and you can click Replace to change just that one, then click Find Next to move to the next match. This is slower but gives you control over each change.

Use Options to Search More Precisely

Click the Options button in the Find & Replace dialog to see more search choices. The most useful ones are Match entire cell contents, which finds only cells that contain exactly what you typed and nothing else, and Match case, which treats uppercase and lowercase letters as different.

You can also search by cell format instead of text. Click the Format button next to Find What, choose a format like bold or a specific color, and Excel will find cells with that format. This is useful if you want to replace all the red text in your sheet with blue text, for example.

The Search option lets you choose to search by rows or by columns, which changes the order Excel checks cells. For most work this does not matter, but if you are replacing formulas or working with linked data, searching in a specific direction can help you catch patterns.

Replace Text in Specific Columns Only

If your sheet has many columns and you only want to replace text in one or two of them, select those columns first before you open Find & Replace. Click the column header to select an entire column, or hold Ctrl and click multiple column headers to select several columns at once.

Then press Ctrl+H to open Find & Replace. When you click Replace All, Excel only searches the columns you selected. This protects the rest of your data from accidental changes.

You can also select a specific range of cells — for example, cells A1 through C50 — by clicking and dragging, or by typing the range in the Name Box. Then open Find & Replace and click Replace All. Excel will only search within that range.

Undo a Replace All if Something Goes Wrong

If you click Replace All and realize when ready that something went wrong, press Ctrl+Z to undo. Excel reverses every replacement at once and puts your data back the way it was. This works as long as you undo right away, before you make other changes to the sheet.

If you have already made other changes since the Replace All, you may not be able to undo just the replacements. This is another reason to use Find All first — it takes only a few seconds and prevents mistakes that are hard to fix later.

If you need to undo multiple steps, you can press Ctrl+Z several times, or click the Undo button in the top left corner and select from the list of recent actions. Excel keeps a history of your recent changes so you can step back through them one at a time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use Find & Replace with formulas?

Yes. If you want to find a formula like =SUM(A1:A10) and replace it with a different formula, type the formulas exactly as they appear in the formula bar. You can also search for part of a formula — for example, searching for A1:A10 will find that range wherever it appears in any formula.

What if I want to replace text but keep some of the original text?

Use a wildcard in your search. Type .* in the Find What field (with Match regular expressions turned on in Options), then in Replace With type $0 plus whatever you want to add. For example, find .* and replace with [$0] to put brackets around every cell's contents. This is advanced but very powerful.

Can I search across multiple sheets at once?

No. Find & Replace only works on the sheet you are currently viewing. If you need to replace text in multiple sheets, you have to open Find & Replace on each sheet separately and run Replace All on each one. There is no built-in way to search all sheets at once.

Does Find & Replace work on hidden rows or columns?

Yes. Find & Replace searches hidden cells too, so if you hide rows or columns and then use Replace All, those hidden cells will be changed. If you only want to replace visible cells, unhide everything first, select only the visible range you want, then use Find & Replace.

What happens if I leave Replace With empty?

Excel deletes the text. If you search for "error" and leave Replace With blank, then click Replace All, every cell containing "error" will have that word removed. The rest of the cell's contents stays. This is useful for cleaning up data, but use Find All first to make sure you are deleting the right thing.