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SEARCH()

Returns the position of a substring within a string. Case-insensitive.

Syntax
fx
=SEARCH(search_for, text_to_search, [starting_at])
Arguments
ArgumentDescription
search_forThe string to look for within text_to_search.
text_to_searchThe text to search for the first occurrence of search_for.
[starting_at]The character within text_to_search at which to start the search.
Example
fx
=SEARCH("hello", "Hello world")

Paste this into Google Sheets to run it. The live playground on this site covers 24 of the 61 functions, and SEARCH isn't one of them yet.

Common pitfalls

  • Case-INSENSITIVE: use FIND if case must match.
  • Supports ? (one char) and * (any chars) wildcards. To match a literal ? or *, prefix with ~.
  • Returns #VALUE! when not found. Combine with IFERROR for safe boolean tests.
Related formulas
FIND()
Returns the position of a substring within a string. Case-sensitive.
MID()
Returns a segment of a string starting at a given position, for a given length.
REGEXMATCH()
Returns TRUE if a piece of text matches a regular expression.
Used by
FIND()
Returns the position of a substring within a string. Case-sensitive.
REGEXMATCH()
Returns TRUE if a piece of text matches a regular expression.
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