Skip to main content

Kutools for Office — One Suite. Five Tools. Get More Done.

How to check if a value exists within a comma-separated list in an Excel cell?

Author Siluvia Last modified

In Excel, you may need to determine whether a specific value exists within a cell containing a comma-separated list, such as Sales,123,AAA. This guide explains a simple formula-based method to quickly check for the presence of a value and return a result indicating "Yes" or "No."

Check if a value exists in a comma-separated list in an Excel cell with a formula

Check if a value exists in a comma-separated list in an Excel cell with a formula

The following formula can help you find a value in a cell with a comma-separated list in Excel. Please do as follows.

1. Select a blank cell, enter the formula =IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH(123,A2)),"yes","no") into the Formula Bar and then press the Enter key. See screenshot:

A screenshot showing a formula in Excel to check if a value exists in a comma-separated list

Note: In the formula, A2 is the cell containing the comma-separated values you want to check.

2. Keep selecting the result cell and drag the Fill Handle down to get all results. If value “123” is in the comma-separated cells, you will get the result as “Yes”; otherwise, you will get the result as “No”. See screenshot:

A screenshot showing results in Excel indicating whether a value exists in a comma-separated list

Related articles:

Best Office Productivity Tools

🤖 Kutools AI Aide: Revolutionize data analysis based on: Intelligent Execution   |  Generate Code  |  Create Custom Formulas  |  Analyze Data and Generate Charts  |  Invoke Kutools Functions…
Popular Features: Find, Highlight or Identify Duplicates   |  Delete Blank Rows   |  Combine Columns or Cells without Losing Data   |   Round without Formula ...
Super Lookup: Multiple Criteria VLookup  |   Multiple Value VLookup  |   VLookup Across Multiple Sheets   |   Fuzzy Lookup ....
Advanced Drop-down List: Quickly Create Drop Down List   |  Dependent Drop Down List   |  Multi-select Drop Down List ....
Column Manager: Add a Specific Number of Columns  |  Move Columns  |  Toggle Visibility Status of Hidden Columns  |  Compare Ranges & Columns ...
Featured Features: Grid Focus   |  Design View   |   Big Formula Bar   |  Workbook & Sheet Manager   |  Resource Library (Auto Text)   |  Date Picker   |  Combine Worksheets   |  Encrypt/Decrypt Cells   |  Send Emails by List   |  Super Filter   |   Special Filter (filter bold/italic/strikethrough...) ...
Top 15 Toolsets:  12 Text Tools (Add Text, Remove Characters, ...)   |   50+ Chart Types (Gantt Chart, ...)   |   40+ Practical Formulas (Calculate age based on birthday, ...)   |   19 Insertion Tools (Insert QR Code, Insert Picture from Path, ...)   |   12 Conversion Tools (Numbers to Words, Currency Conversion, ...)   |   7 Merge & Split Tools (Advanced Combine Rows, Split Cells, ...)   |   ... and more
Use Kutools in your preferred language – supports English, Spanish, German, French, Chinese, and 40+ others!

Supercharge Your Excel Skills with Kutools for Excel, and Experience Efficiency Like Never Before. Kutools for Excel Offers Over 300 Advanced Features to Boost Productivity and Save Time.  Click Here to Get The Feature You Need The Most...

Office Tab Brings Tabbed interface to Office, and Make Your Work Much Easier

  • Enable tabbed editing and reading in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, Access, Visio and Project.
  • Open and create multiple documents in new tabs of the same window, rather than in new windows.
  • Increases your productivity by 50%, and reduces hundreds of mouse clicks for you every day!

All Kutools add-ins. One installer

Kutools for Office suite bundles add-ins for Excel, Word, Outlook & PowerPoint plus Office Tab Pro, which is ideal for teams working across Office apps.

Excel Word Outlook Tabs PowerPoint
  • All-in-one suite — Excel, Word, Outlook & PowerPoint add-ins + Office Tab Pro
  • One installer, one license — set up in minutes (MSI-ready)
  • Works better together — streamlined productivity across Office apps
  • 30-day full-featured trial — no registration, no credit card
  • Best value — save vs buying individual add-in