Find a link in excel

How to Find External Links or References in Excel

Manually finding external links or references in a spreadsheet is a cumbersome task. Microsoft does not have any inbuilt function that can find external references or links but still there do exist some workarounds to do this. And this is what I am going to share with you today.

Table of Contents

Method 1: Finding external References by using the find function

Though this is not a foolproof method still it can reduce the manual effort drastically. The main logic behind this method is that excel always encloses external references in long brackets “[]”. So, if you find all the “[]” brackets, you can easily get the list of external references used.

• Open the excel sheet, for which you want to find the external references.
• After this press the “Ctrl+F” keys to open the ‘Find’ and replace the dialog box.
• In the find, textbox enter the string “[*]” (without quotes). This string means that resultant will be any string enclosed within long brackets.

• Next, in the ‘Look in’ dropdown select Formulas and hit the “Find All” button.
• The resultant will be a set of external references that are used in the sheet.

Method 2: Edit Links Option

On the excel ribbon there a ‘Data’ tab, inside this tab, there is an option called “Edit Links”.

Basically, the edit link option displays all the other files to which your spreadsheet is linked to. Please note that this option will be disabled by default and will only become active if your sheet contains some external references.

So, this can become a quick check to verify if your excel sheet contains external references or not. Using “Edit Links” is quite easy just follow the below steps to remove external references from your excel sheet:

• Open your excel sheet and navigate to the ‘Data’ tab, select the option “Edit Links”.
• In the “Edit Links” window all the spreadsheets which are referenced in your excel file will be listed.
• On the right side of this Edit Links window there are options like ‘Update values (can be used for reloading the values)’, ‘Change Source (can be used to change the referenced file)’, ‘Open Source (opens the referenced excel files)’ and ‘Break Links (can be used to break the referenced links)’.

• Among all these options ‘Break Links’ option is the one that we will be using, it breaks the references and replaces them with their current values.
• Please note that the use of this feature should be done with utmost care as this cannot be undone.

Method 3: Find External Reference links by using Excel Macro

Using excel macros can be really helpful in finding the external reference links. To create a macro that can find and list down all the external links in a spreadsheet, follow the below steps:

• With the excel sheet opened, navigate to the ‘View’ Tab, click on the ‘Macros’ button.

• Now enter the macro name say “Fetch_Links” (without quotes) and hit the create button.
• This will open the Excel VBA editor, simply paste the below code after the first line.

• The whole code should look the same as shown in the below screenshot.

• Now simply press the ‘F5’ button to run the macro. The code will create a new worksheet that contains all the external referenced links.

Method 4: Find and Delete Links Add-in

If you don’t want to use any of the first 3 methods then you should probably go for this one. Microsoft has now developed an Excel add-in that can run as a wizard and finds all the external links that your spreadsheet contains. It also has a feature to delete the referenced links.

You can find this add-in here.

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Find links (external references) in a workbook

Linking to other workbooks is a very common task in Excel, but sometimes you might find yourself with a workbook that has links you can’t find even though Excel tells you they exist. There is no automatic way to find all external references that are used in a workbook, however, there are several manual methods you can use to find them. You need to look in formulas, defined names, objects (like text boxes or shapes), chart titles, and chart data series.

Any Excel workbook you’ve linked to will have that workbook’s filename in the link with its .xl* file extension (like .xls, .xlsx, .xlsm), so a recommended method is to look for all references to the .xl partial file extension. If you’re linking to another source, you’ll need to determine the best search term to use.

Find links used in formulas

Press Ctrl+F to launch the Find and Replace dialog.

In the Find what box, enter .xl.

In the Within box, click Workbook.

In the Look in box, click Formulas.

In the list box that is displayed, look in the Formula column for formulas that contain .xl. In this case, Excel found multiple instances of Budget Master.xlsx.

To select the cell with an external reference, click the cell address link for that row in the list box.

Tip: Click any column header to sort the column, and group all of the external references together.

On the Formulas tab, in the Defined Names group, click Name Manager.

Check each entry in the list, and look in the Refers To column for external references. External references contain a reference to another workbook, such as [Budget.xlsx].

Click any column header to sort the column, and group all of the external references together.

You can group multiple items with the Shift or Ctrl keys and Left-click if you want to delete multiple items at once.

Press Ctrl+G, the shortcut for the Go To dialog, then click Special > Objects > OK. This will select all objects on the active worksheet.

Special dialog» loading=»lazy»>

Press the Tab key to move between each of the selected objects, and then look in the formula bar for a reference to another workbook, such as [Budget.xlsx].

Click the chart title on the chart that you want to check.

In the formula bar , look for a reference to another workbook, such as [Budget.xls].

Select the chart that you want to check.

On the Layout tab, in the Current Selection group, click the arrow next to the Chart Elements box, and then click the data series that you want to check.

Format > Current Selection» loading=»lazy»>

In the formula bar , look for a reference to another workbook, such as [Budget.xls] in the SERIES function.

Need more help?

You can always ask an expert in the Excel Tech Community or get support in the Answers community.

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Find Links in Excel

How to Find External Links in Excel? (Step by Step)

We need to look at objects, defined names, formulas, objects, chart titles, and chart data series to find these external references.

Table of contents

#1 – Steps to Find External Links Used in Formulas

We must first use the Ctrl+F keys to start the Find and Replace in the Excel dialog box.

Then, enter .xl in the Find what box. Next, click Workbook in the Within box and Formulas in the Look in box. After that, click Find All.

In the list box displayed, we may see the Formula column for formulas that contain .xl. For this example, Excel has found multiple cases.

Else, selecting the particular cell with an external reference in the list box, click on the cell address link for that row.

#2 – Steps to Find External Links Used in Defined Names

• Step 1 – We must first go to the “Formulas” tab. Then, click on Name manager in excelName Manager In ExcelThe name manager in Excel is used to create, edit, and delete named ranges. For example, we sometimes use names instead of giving cell references. By using the name manager, we can create a new reference, edit it, or delete it.read more in the defined names group.

• Step 2 – Check for each entry in the list. For external references, look in the “Refers To” column. External references contain a reference to another workbook.

#3 – Step to Find External Links Used in Excel Objects

• Step 1 – In the “Home” tab of the Excel window. In the “Editing” group, click on the “Go To Special” option under the “Find & Select” option.

• Step 2 – Then, select objects and click “OK.” It will select all objects on the active worksheet. To move between each selected object, we must press the “Tab” key on the keyboard.

• Step 3 – For a reference to another workbook, look in the formula bar of an image, such as [Budget Excel Template.xlsx].

#4 – Steps to Find External Links Used in Chart Titles

• Step 1 – First, we must click on the “Chart Title” of the chart that we want to check for external links. Then, in the “Formula” bar, look for a reference to another workbook, such as “[Chart.xlsx].”

#5 – Steps to For Find External Links Used in Excel Chart Data Series

• Step 1 – We must first select the chart that we want to check. In the “Current Selection” group, click the arrow next to the “Chart Elements” box in the “Format” tab, then click the data series that we want to check.

• Step 2 – Now, in the “Formula” bar, look for a reference to another workbook, such as [Types of Charts Excel Template.xlsx] in the SERIES function.

#6 – Steps to Find External Links Using Edit Links Option

We can use the following steps for finding external links using the “Edit Links” option:

• Step 1 – We must go to the “Data” tab first. Then, in the “Connections” group, click on “Edit Links.”

• Step 2 – It will open the “Edit Links” dialog box, which will have a list of all the worksheets that are being linked.

• Step 3 – Click on the Break Links excelBreak Links ExcelIn the excel worksheet, there are two different methods to break external links. The first method is to copy and paste as a value method, and the second method is to go to the DATA tab, click Edit Links, and choose the break the link option.read more option to convert all linked cells to values.

#1 – Things to Remember While Breaking Links in Excel

Once we break a link to the source worksheet of an external link, all the formulas using the values in the source worksheet are converted to their current values.

For example, the calculated value will replace the SUM formula once we break the link to the external reference =SUM([Budget.xls]Annual!C15: C30). The calculated value will replace the SUM formula. As we cannot undo this action, saving a version of the destination worksheet is better as a backup.

#2 – Things to Remember While Updating all the External Links

You can decide whether to update links automatically at startup or after startup.

1. We must go to the “Data” tab. In the “Connections” group, click on “Edit Links.” Then, click on “Startup Prompt” and can choose the option we want.

#3 – Things to Remember About Controlling Links to Other Worksheets

The links are automatically updated when the source and destination worksheets are open on the same computer.

When we open a destination worksheet and the source worksheet is not open, a dialog box of a trust bar may pop up asking whether to update the links.

We can control the trust bar as to whether the “Trust Bar” alerts us or whether to update all links when the trust bar alert does not appear. We can also update only selected links if the worksheet contains more than one link.

For manually updating all links or none of the links in a worksheet, we must follow the below steps:

1. Close all worksheets.
2. For updating uniformly, all the source worksheets must be opened as updates will not be uniform if one source worksheet is open and others are closed.
3. Open the worksheet that comprises all the links.
4. For updating the links on “Trust Bar,” click “Options.”
5. Then, click “Enable this Content.”

For manually updating only some of the links to other worksheets, we must follow the following steps:

1. First, close all worksheets.
2. Next, open the worksheet that comprises the links.
3. Then, click on the “Data” tab. After that, in the “Connections” group, click “Edit Links.”
4. Finally, in the “Source” list displayed, we must click on the linked object we want to update.

• We must hold the “Ctrl” key and click each linked object to select multiple links.
• For selecting all links, we must use the “Ctrl+A” key.
• Lastly, click “Update Values.”

Recommended Articles

This article is a guide to Finding Links in Excel. This article teaches us to find external links in objects, defined names, formulas, chart titles, and chart data series with practical examples. You may learn more about Excel from the following articles: –

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