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Working with big Excel spreadsheets never have been easy, especially when you need to search for a piece of text in a file that have thousands, even ten of thousands rows. Searching through a single file can cost you hours, if not days if you work on a slow computer. To make the matter worse, sometimes you need to search in multiple files and search for multiple strings.
Let me give you an example.
I have a imaginary store that sells auto parts. My store has over 400,000 items and they are in two separated files. Opening it on an old computer is problematic.
Now, for example, I want to search for parts that contain the text “SPLS” for some reasons. If I go with the traditional way, I would press control + F (or Command + F on a Mac) to start searching. To be very honest with you, looking for results from thousands or million in my case is not an easy task.
To make the problem worse, what if I want to search for multiple text, not just one? What if you need to search for multiple text in MULTIPLE files? Excel only provides us one search box and you can search for one string of text at a time.
Are we out of luck? Is there any better way to search for:
- Multiple text
- In multiple Excel files
Search Text In Multiple Excel Files Using Software
Luckily, there is a better way to do this boring task, which is using a pieces of software made exactly to do this task.
Let’s have a look at the software and how it works.
As you can see, this is the software that solves the searching problem in big excel files. You see its true value when you have many files to search and many text to find. Also, the larger the files, the more time the software can save you.
This is the way this software work step by step:
- You select the file or files you need to search by clicking on add excel files button at the top left of the panel. You can select multiple excel files using this button.
- Then, enter the text you want to search in these files, you need to enter one search per line. There is no limit.
- Click on start searching
It takes some time for the software to go through the files and find the text you want to find. As you can guess, the bigger the files, the longer it takes to find all matches. However, in comparison to a human, the software is much quicker, by hundreds times.
You may wonder, is this for Windows only? Good news is Excel Ultimate Search works perfectly on Windows, Mac, and Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, Centos…)
Download Excel Ultimate Search
Download the app now to get instant access!
I have a “few” files that are rather simple in terms of content, but was wondering how I would then go about searching for only the number 401 and not get results with eg. 5410 or 98401, but ONLY the actual value of 401.
I can add that as an option. May I send you an email when it’s done?
Helllo binarycarpenter, very nice tool. Thumbs up! Do you thin it is possible to search multiple spreadsheets for a result? For example: 188,50 (result of calculation =A1+D1)
Hi, I haven’t tried that but the tool searches for value so I think you can search with that.
Hi, I want to extract the list of the files I searched. There’s no option of that. Mu*ch thanks
Hello ash,
Can you please elaborate?
How does one obtain such a tool as your Excel Search utility? I’ve been poke around your site and do not see how.
Thanks,
Jon
Hi Jon,
Thanks for the report. I’ve updated the page with the download links.
I tried to add a file with extension xlsm and it looks thats not possible?
I use a lot of macros in my xls files …
Currently it supports .xlsx, .xls only. I’m going to add support for other excel files in the next version.
Hello, Pay pal is not working in Pakistan , kindly let us know some other way of payment which you can acceptable, like western union, etc. And is there any discount if we buy more than one .
Good day
Regards,
I’ve sent you an email. Thanks!
we haven’t received your email kindly resend it.
I sent to [email protected].
What email should I send to?
I download the zip. I download JRE but the software is still not opening. It just opens in Winzip and there’s no files that’s executalbe? What’s wrong?
Replied to you via email
is there an option to exclude hidden files? Thank you very much.
May I know which operating system you have?
Does the Pro Version remember the files or folder selected for the previous search (separate execution), or must they be selected again? Are the the Results Column Widths remembered from the previous search session, or do the adjustments to Column Widths need to be made again? Saving this information from search session to search session will likely save time for most users.
Hi Michael,
There is a free version available. Please give it a try.
how do you run the tool?
No .exe file after unzipped, how to run the product?
You need to install JRE to run this.
Can you select a folder of excel files?
Yes