Find and Replace in Smartsheet
Smartsheet does have a built-in find and replace — but it works one sheet at a time. Here is how to use it, and what to do when the value you need to change appears across dozens of sheets.
Find and replace within one sheet
Inside any sheet you have edit rights on:
- Press Ctrl+F (Windows) or Cmd+F (Mac) to open Find, then switch to the Replace option.
- Type the text to find and the text to replace it with.
- Use the options to narrow matching (such as matching the entire cell) if you need precision.
- Step through matches replacing one at a time, or replace all matches in the sheet at once.
The limits of the built-in tool
The built-in dialog is scoped to the sheet you have open. When a client is renamed, a status label changes, or a project code is retired, that value usually lives in many sheets — and each one means opening the sheet, running the same replace, and trusting you did not miss one.
There is also no overall preview: you cannot see how many cells would change across your whole workspace before committing.
And Replace has native blind spots worth knowing even within one sheet: it works only in Grid view, it will not touch cells in hidden columns or in rows filtered out of view, and it cannot replace inside formula cells or symbol cells such as checkboxes, stars and flags. So a whole-sheet replace is not always as complete as it looks.
Find and replace across many sheets at once
Our Find & Replace tool runs the same operation across every sheet you select in one pass. Each run starts as a dry run: see the total affected rows and cells per sheet, then page through the proposed changes before applying. Case, whole-word and whole-cell matching are supported. Worth knowing where it looks: it rewrites text in Text/Number, dropdown and multi-select columns, so date, contact, checkbox and symbol columns are not searched, and numbers stay numbers. Formula cells, cell links and images are skipped automatically so nothing fragile breaks.
Do it in one pass instead
Run find and replace across many Smartsheets at once, with a dry-run preview before anything is written. Case, whole-word and whole-cell matching.
Try Find & Replace FreeFrequently asked questions
Does Smartsheet have a find and replace feature?
Yes — press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on Mac) inside a sheet to open it. It replaces text within that one sheet only.
Can I find and replace across multiple Smartsheets at once?
Not with the built-in tool. A bulk find-and-replace tool runs the same replacement across every sheet you select in a single pass, with a dry-run preview of every change first.
Will a bulk replace break my formulas or cell links?
No. Our tool rewrites text in Text/Number, dropdown and multi-select columns only, skipping formula cells, cell links, images and numeric values — so the fragile things stay as they are. The trade-off is that date, contact and checkbox columns are not searched either.