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How to find and locate circular reference in Excel quickly?

Author: Xiaoyang Last Modified: 2024-08-20

When you apply a formula in a cell, says Cell C1, and the formula refers back to its own cell directly or indirectly, says =Sum (A1:C1), circular reference happens.

When you reopen this workbook with circular reference again, it pops up a circular reference error message, which warns formulas contains a circular reference and may not calculate correctly. See the following screenshot:

circular reference error message

It tells what is the problem, however, it does not say where the error stays in. If you click the OK button, the warning error message will be closed, but it will pop up next time when you reopen the workbook; if you click the Help button, it will bring you to the Help document.

Find out and locate the cell in Status bar

Find out and locate the cell in Circular Reference

Find out and locate the cell in Status bar

You can find the circular reference in the Status bar.
find the circular reference in the Status bar

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Find out and locate the cell in Circular Reference

Actually, you can find out and locate the cell with circular reference in Excel with following steps:

Step 1: Go to the Formula Auditing group under the Formula tab.

Step 2: Click the Arrow button besides the Error Checking button.

Step 3: Move mouse over the Circular References item in the drop down list, and it shows the cells with circular references. See the following screenshot:

click Circular References item to show circular references

Step 4: Click the cell address listed besides the Circular References, it selects the cell with circular reference at once.

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