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How to remove everything before a character in Excel and Google Sheets
Topic:Text manipulationExcel & Google Sheets
=MID(A2,FIND("@",A2)+1,LEN(A2))✓
Verified example
Computed by a real spreadsheet engine on the sample data below.
| alice@example.com |
| bob@company.org |
| carol@domain.net |
| david@mail.co |
=MID(A2,FIND("@",A2)+1,LEN(A2))→example.com
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Step by step
- 1Decide on the delimiter character — for example '@' to extract a domain from an email.
- 2Use FIND("@",A2) to get the character's position.
- 3Add 1 to skip past the character itself.
- 4Use LEN(A2) as the number of characters to extract — this is always long enough to get the rest of the string.
- 5Full formula: =MID(A2,FIND("@",A2)+1,LEN(A2)).
- 6Wrap in IFERROR to return the original value when the delimiter is missing.
Tips
- To remove text before the LAST occurrence of a character, find the last position with: LEN(A2)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A2,"@",""))+FIND(CHAR(1),SUBSTITUTE(A2,"@",CHAR(1),LEN(A2)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A2,"@","")))).
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Frequently asked
Can I use SEARCH instead of FIND?
Yes — SEARCH is identical in behavior but case-insensitive, useful when the delimiter letter might appear in different cases.
What if I want to remove the text before the second occurrence of a character?
Use a nested FIND with a start position argument: FIND("@",A2,FIND("@",A2)+1) finds the second occurrence.
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