---
title: "Finding & Replace Text In Airtable | Airtable Support"
slug: "finding-and-replacing-text"
description: "This article covers how to find and replace text within a string to streamline your team's and organization's work."
updated: 2025-09-05T22:06:43Z
published: 2025-09-05T22:06:43Z
stale: true
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://support.airtable.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Finding and replacing text in Airtable

| **Plan Availability** | All plan types |
| --- | --- |
| **Permissions** | - **Owner** / **Creator** - Can add, delete, duplicate, rename, and customize fields - **Editors** - Sort, filter, group, hide, and copy field URL - **Commenters / Read-only** - Copy field URL |
| **Platform(s)** | Web/Browser, Mac app, and Windows app (with some additional limited support on mobile) |

## Using FIND() and SEARCH() in Airtable

The `FIND `and `SEARCH` functions locate any character in a string of text and tells you where the first occurrence exists in that string. While `SEARCH` will only provide the character position if it finds one, `FIND` will provide the number zero if it finds nothing at all.

This makes `FIND` a better candidate for most formulas because it offers a result that will prevent multi-function formulas from displaying an error. Aside from that, and their names, these functions are otherwise identical. For simplicity, we'll focus on using `FIND`. Let's begin with an example string of text to work with:

```plaintext
Hello, world!
```

If you wanted to find the position of the comma in that string you'd just use the FIND function like this:

```plaintext
FIND  ( ","  ,  "Hello, world!"  )
```

In this case, the FIND function will provide the following result: `6`

We get the number 6 because the comma in the example is the 6th character in that string of text. If we, instead, looked for the exclamation point the formula would provide the number 13 instead. A common use of `FIND` is to extract the file name from an attachment in a record using a formula like this:

```plaintext
LEFT({Attachment Field},FIND("(",{Attachment Field})-1)
```

![360101549513find-1.jpg](https://cdn.airtable.document360.io/d0ee2ee4-3f78-47c7-b388-85e40be9fb89/Images/Documentation/360101549513find-1.jpg)

File names always follow the same structure in Airtable, and look like this:

![1500000450422find-2.jpg](https://cdn.airtable.document360.io/d0ee2ee4-3f78-47c7-b388-85e40be9fb89/Images/Documentation/1500000450422find-2.jpg)

We can therefore use `FIND` to identify a character in that file name string, like the opening parenthesis, as a sort of placeholder in order to extract only the file name from that entire string. Here's the formula again for easy reference:

`LEFT({Attachment Field},FIND("(", {Attachment Field})-1)`

`FIND` looks for the opening parenthesis and returns the number that it falls on within the string. `LEFT` then uses that number to know how many characters to extract from the entire string. This creates a dynamic way to always extract the right amount of character for any file name.

> [!CAUTION]
> Note
> 
> Note that this formula only accounts for attachment fields with a **single** file attached.

## Using REPLACE() and SUBSTITUTE() in Airtable

> [!CAUTION]
> Note
> 
> Before reading and understanding the section below, you may want to read the section about the `FIND()` and `SEARCH()` functions [available here](/docs/finding-and-replacing-text#using-find-and-search-in-airtable).

The `REPLACE` and `SUBSTITUTE` functions accomplish very similar but different tasks. Put simply, you use `REPLACE` to replace a single instance of some amount of text (e.g. a name) and you use `SUBSTITUTE` when you want to replace them all. Take this text string for example:

```plaintext
His name was George.
```

What if his name wasn't George but, rather, Billy? We can use the `REPLACE` function to fix that:

```plaintext
REPLACE("His name was George", 14, 6, "Billy")
```

That formula would provide the result we want:

```plaintext
His name was Billy
```

The SUBSTITUTE function can do the same thing:

```plaintext
SUBSTITUTE("His name was George", "George", "Billy")
```

In this case, using `SUBSTITUTE` makes more sense because **George** only appears once in the text and it doesn't require us to locate any exact character positions. If **George** appeared multiple times and we only wanted to change one instance of **George** to Billy, using `REPLACE` would make more sense.

You can use both functions on text fields in your base like this:

```plaintext
REPLACE({Text Field}, 14, 6, "Billy")
```

```plaintext
SUBSTITUTE({Text Field}, "George", "Billy")
```

SUBSTITUTE, on its own, will successfully replace every instance of **George** with **Billy** in every record using that text field. If it finds nothing, it will replace nothing and leave the text as-is.

REPLACE, on the other hand, will replace the characters at the specified location with **Billy** in every record. You probably won't want that and will need to locate where the first instance of George begins if you want to ensure consistent replacements. This formula meets those criteria:

```plaintext
REPLACE({Text Field}, FIND("George", {Text Field}), 6, "Billy")
```

In this case, we only need to find the starting location of **George** because we know the count will always remain the same. After all, George is and always will be a six letter name. When you want to replace a single instance some text, you only need one other function to do it consistently throughout all your records.

## Nesting functions in Airtable

In order to substitute out different values within the same formula, you're able to nest these functions similarly to how you would nest an IF statement.

For example, if you wanted to substitute out vertical pipes `||` for double forward slashes `//`, and periods `.` with commas `,` you could nest those two substitutions together in the same formula.

```plaintext
SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE ({Field Name}, "||" , "//" ),"." , "," )
```

Notice that only the inner-most function references the field name, while the outer function works by substituting the *result* of the function nested within it.

See the example below for a more dramatic example of a complex nested substitute formula from our community:

![1500000450522nesting-1.jpg](https://cdn.airtable.document360.io/d0ee2ee4-3f78-47c7-b388-85e40be9fb89/Images/Documentation/1500000450522nesting-1.jpg)

![1500000450542nesting-2.gif](https://cdn.airtable.document360.io/d0ee2ee4-3f78-47c7-b388-85e40be9fb89/Images/Documentation/1500000450542nesting-2.gif)

While the formula above may look intimidating, it's actually quite straightforward. The inner-most function `SUBSTITUTE({name},"%","%25")` references the field where the target text exists. Then, each of the other nested functions above it substitute out text from the result of each of the functions within it.