Find Matching Rows in Google Spreadsheets

You have a Google Spreadsheet and you need to programmatically find if a cell with particular value exists in that sheet. Well, Google Scripts can help. You can either search cells in a single column (like A) or the script can search for all cells in the row and return the index of the matching row.

function findInColumn(column, data) {
  var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
  var column = sheet.getRange(column + ':' + column); // like A:A

  var values = column.getValues();
  var row = 0;

  while (values[row] && values[row][0] !== data) {
    row++;
  }

  if (values[row][0] === data) return row + 1;
  else return -1;
}

function findInRow(data) {
  var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
  var rows = sheet.getDataRange.getValues();

  for (var r = 0; r < rows.length; r++) {
    if (rows[r].join('#').indexOf(data) !== -1) {
      return r + 1;
    }
  }

  return -1;
}
Amit Agarwal

Amit Agarwal

Google Developer Expert, Google Cloud Champion

Amit Agarwal is a Google Developer Expert in Google Workspace and Google Apps Script. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science (I.I.T.) and is the first professional blogger in India.

Amit has developed several popular Google add-ons including Mail Merge for Gmail and Document Studio. Read more on Lifehacker and YourStory

Awards & Titles

Digital Inspiration has won several awards since it's launch in 2004.

Google Developer Expert

Google Developer Expert

Google awarded us the Google Developer Expert award recogizing our work in Google Workspace.

ProductHunt Golden Kitty

ProductHunt Golden Kitty

Our Gmail tool won the Lifehack of the Year award at ProductHunt Golden Kitty Awards in 2017.

Microsoft MVP Alumni

Microsoft MVP Alumni

Microsoft awarded us the Most Valuable Professional (MVP) title for 5 years in a row.

Google Cloud Champion

Google Cloud Champion

Google awarded us the Champion Innovator title recognizing our technical skill and expertise.

Email Newsletter

Sign up for our email newsletter to stay up to date.

We will never send any spam emails. Promise.