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Search Text in Multiple Excel Files

Modified on: Wed, Jul 31 2024 9:40 AM

File Explorer is the Windows built-in application for managing and searching your folders and files.


Here are the steps to search text in your Excel documents with File Explorer:

  1. Navigate to the folder that you want to search in.
  2. Click on the search bar at the upper right corner to make the search settings appear.
  3. Go to "Search" -> "Advanced options" and enable "File contents".
  4. Type your searched words and press "Enter".

If you want to search in Excel files only (.xls and .xlsx), type: "ext:xls*" followed by the searched words, for example: "ext:xls* best".

If you just need a list of the files containing your keywords, this method is perfect for you.


However, in most of the cases you need to view the context in which the searched words are found, which is not available in File Explorer. To view them, you will have to open each file and manually search for the words inside.


File Explorer also offers many other convenient options for setting up and filtering the search, such as filtering by date modified, by type of files (photos, videos, music, etc.), file size, etc. 

Detailed instructions for their use, as well as much other additional information about searching through File Explorer, see in our article on searching files in Windows 10.


Pros:

  • Windows built-in.
  • Searches in all sheets within the Excel file.
  • Possible to choose to work with or without indexing.
  • Many settings and filters available – by date, file size, and more.

 

Cons:

  • Doesn’t show the parts of the text containing the searched words.
  • Cannot search for combinations of words contained in a single sentence.
  • Cannot sort results by relevance.
  • The search is slow if you do not turn on the indexing of the file contents.
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