How to check or find if a value is in a list in Excel?

If there is a long list with hundreds of names in a worksheet, and now you want to check or find if a name such as “Lily” is in this name list, how can you quickly check it without scrolling down one by one? Here I introduce the tricks to quickly get it done in Excel.

Find if a value is in a list with Find and Replace function

Find if a value is in a list with Kutools for Excel

Find if a value is in a list with formula

Find if a value is in a list with Find and Replace function

Select the whole column of the name list, and then press Ctrl + F keys simultaneously to display the Find and Replace dialog, then under Find tab, enter the name or value you want to find and check into the Find what textbox, and then click Find All to list the finding results. See screenshot:

If there are values matched, it will list the match values in the list below, see screenshot:

But if there is not a value matched, it will pop out a dialog to remind you. See screenshot:

Find if a value is in a list with Kutools for Excel

If you have Kutools for Excel, with the Select Specific Cells utility, you can quickly check if a value is in a list, and at the same time, it locates the value.

After free installing Kutools for Excel, please do as below:

1. Select the list you want to check the certain value from, and click Kutools > Select > Select Specific Cells. See screenshot:

2. In the Select Specific Cells dialog, select Equals from the first drop down list in Specific type section, and then enter the value you want to check and locate into the next textbox. See screenshot:

3. Click Ok, and a dialog pops out to tell you the number of matched cells. And click OK, you can see the value you check has been selected. See screenshot:

Tip: If the value you check is not in the list, after clicking Ok, a dialog pops out to tell you there is not a value math. See screenshot:

Find if a value is in a list with formula

Besides the Find and Replace function, you can use a formula to check if a value is in a list.

Select a blank cell, here is C2, and type this formula =IF(ISNUMBER(MATCH(B2,A:A,0)),1,0) into it, and press Enter key to get the result, and if it displays 1, indicates the value is in the list, and if 0, that is not exist.

Tip:

1. You can use this formula =COUNTIF(A:A,B2)>0 to handle it too, and it displays TRUE means the value you check is in the list, or not.

2. In above formulas, A:A is the column list you check value in, and B2 is the value you want to find if is in the list.

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