find_text - Required. The text you want to find. Case-sensitive (e.g., "@", " ", "ABC").
within_text - Required. The text in which you want to search (e.g., A1, "john@example.com").
start_num - Optional. Optional. The character position where search starts (default is 1). Use to find 2nd, 3rd occurrence.
| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Formula | Position | |
| 2 | john@company.com | ||
| 3 | Find @ position: | =FIND("@",A2) 5 |
Find position of @ symbol in email address
=FIND("@","john@email.com") → 5
Find first space after character 10
=FIND(" ","John Smith Lives",10) → 11
Extract domain after @ in email
=MID(...,6,999) → "company.com"
Find 2nd space by starting after 1st
Nest FIND to locate repeated delimiters
Use this text search function in Excel to locate the @ symbol in email addresses, then extract the domain name using MID or RIGHT functions. This pattern is essential for marketing teams cleaning email lists, sales departments segmenting leads by company domain, compliance teams identifying corporate vs personal emails, and data analysts parsing bulk contact data. It provides the exact position needed for precise substring extraction - critical when processing thousands of email records where manual parsing is impossible and accuracy is mandatory for customer segmentation and email deliverability analysis.
| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | @ Position | Domain | |
| 2 | john.doe@company.com | 9 | |
| 3 | Position: | =MID(A2,B2+1,999) company.com |
Use this text search function in Excel to locate the space between first and last names, enabling precise name splitting for HR databases, CRM systems, mailing list segmentation, and personalized communications. This formula identifies the delimiter position so LEFT extracts first name and RIGHT extracts last name - a fundamental data cleaning technique for HR managers importing employee rosters, marketers personalizing email campaigns, database administrators normalizing contact records, and operations teams standardizing name formats across systems for consistent reporting and mail merge operations.
| A | B | C | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Full Name | Space Pos | First Name | Last Name |
| 2 | John Smith | 5 | ||
| 3 | Results: | John | =LEFT(A2,B2-1) & " " & MID(A2,B2+1,999) Smith |
❌ The Problem:
✅ Solution:
=SEARCH("abc", A1)Use the SEARCH function instead if you need case-insensitive text search. It is designed for exact case matching, while SEARCH ignores case differences - choose based on whether case matters for your use case.
❌ The Problem:
✅ Solution:
=IFERROR(FIND("@",A1), 0)Wrap this function with IFERROR to handle cases where the search text doesn't exist. Return 0, blank (""), or a default value when text is not found. This makes formulas robust for real-world data where delimiters may be missing or inconsistent.
❌ The Problem:
✅ Solution:
=FIND("~",SUBSTITUTE(A1," ","~",LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ",""))))To find the LAST occurrence in Excel, use SUBSTITUTE to replace the last space with a unique character (~), then use this function with that character. This text search function searches left-to-right only - for right-to-left searching, combine with SUBSTITUTE and LEN to locate the final delimiter for accurate text splitting.
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