How to find the position of a character in a text string in Excel
Formula (Excel and Google Sheets)
=FIND($E$1,A2)Use =FIND("@",A2). It returns the position of the first match, counting the first character as 1; SEARCH does the same but ignores case.
- Result on the example
- one result per row in
B2, filled down toB6 - Works in
- Every current version
- Google Sheets
- Same formula
See it work
The formula is already in B2, filled down to B6. Change any input and the result updates, or edit the formula to experiment.
How it works
FIND returns the position of the first match. On its own the number is rarely the answer, but it is what LEFT, MID and RIGHT need to cut text at a character: everything before the @ is LEFT(A2,FIND("@",A2)-1).
=FIND($E$1,A2)Result10
$E$1"@"The value in E1.
A2"lena.park@northwind.example"The value in A2.
FIND($E$1,A2)10FIND: Position of text, case-sensitive.- find_text
$E$1"@" - within_text
A2"lena.park@northwind.example"
- find_text
In Google Sheets
The same formula works in Google Sheets: =FIND($E$1,A2). We ran it in Google Sheets mode on the same data and it returns the same results.
Other ways to do it
Each one was run on the same example sheet.
| Formula | Result | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| =SEARCH($E$1,A2) | 10, 5, 7… | SEARCH ignores case and understands the wildcards ? and *. Use FIND when case matters or the character is ? or *. |
Common mistakes
- If the character isn't there, FIND returns #VALUE!. Wrap it in IFERROR, or test with
ISNUMBER(FIND(…)). - SEARCH treats ? and * as wildcards. To find a real question mark, search for "~?".
Try it yourself
Same data, empty answer cell. Your formula is graded instantly, then re-checked on changed data, so a typed-in number won't pass.
Find the position of a character in a text string
B2, return the position of the character in E1 in the email, and fill down to B6.Questions
How do I find the second occurrence?
Start searching after the first: =FIND($E$1,A2,FIND($E$1,A2)+1).
How do I find the last occurrence?
Use =FIND(CHAR(1),SUBSTITUTE(A2,$E$1,CHAR(1),LEN(A2)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A2,$E$1,"")))).
Checked by running on 2026-10-30: every formula and result on this page was calculated by the Spreadsheet Practice formula engine, in both Excel and Google Sheets modes.