How to Find the First Used Cell with a VBA Macro

The first used or non-blank cell in an Excel worksheet can be found with the Range.Find method in VBA.

the-range-find-method-to-find-the-first-used-non-blank-cell-with-vba-macro-excel

In this case, we will use the Range.Find method to start in the last cell in the worksheet, and set the SearchDirection parameter to xlNext.  This then starts the search in the first cell in the worksheet (A1) and looks through each row until a non-blank cell is found.

We set the After parameter to Cells(Rows.Count, Columns.Count) to reference the last cell in the sheet. This will find the last cell with the Rows.Count and Columns.count properties, regardless of how many rows and columns are in the sheet.

The LookIn parameter can be set to xlFormulas to find any cell that contains a formula, even if the formula returns a blank.  Set the LookIn parameter to xlValues to only search the values or results of formulas.

Here is the macro code you can copy/paste to your own Excel file.

Sub Find_First_Used_Cell()
'Finds the first non-blank cell in a worksheet.

Dim rFound As Range
    
    On Error Resume Next
    Set rFound = Cells.Find(What:="*", _
                    After:=Cells(Rows.Count, Columns.Count), _
                    LookAt:=xlPart, _
                    LookIn:=xlFormulas, _
                    SearchOrder:=xlByRows, _
                    SearchDirection:=xlNext, _
                    MatchCase:=False)
    
    On Error GoTo 0
    
    If rFound Is Nothing Then
        MsgBox "All cells are blank."
    Else
        MsgBox "First Cell: " & rFound.Address
    End If
    
End Sub

I have an entire video series and article on how to find the LAST used or non-blank cell on a sheet with VBA.

Please leave a comment below with any questions.

5 comments

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  • Hi Jon,

    I am a new VBA user. I tried your code above and it worked. Thank you. Would you please modify it to go to the top row in an Excel sheet no matter what is in a row.

    Thanks,

    Gary

  • If you’re trying to find the first row with data, then just add “.Row” at the end of cells.find; example: Cells.Find(What:=”*”, _
    After:=Cells(Rows.Count, Columns.Count), _
    LookAt:=xlPart, _
    LookIn:=xlFormulas, _
    SearchOrder:=xlByRows, _
    SearchDirection:=xlNext, _
    MatchCase:=False).Row

  • Please can you explain why the * character works in this What:=”*” element of code, as opposed to finding first cell that contains it?

  • Hi Jon: I have been enjoying your VBA course and I have several projects that will require the development of a VBA code. I would like to share with you the code that I have generated to date but my goal is to substitute the hard coding such as the cell definition “C700:P788”. I have included a message box that identifies the cell address and would like to use this information to copy data from one worksheet to another. Since the same type of code will be used throughout this project, I want to make sure that I have a working process before duplicating it. Below is the VBA code that I am currently using and thanks in advance for your support. Please let me know if any other piece of information is required in order to complete the coding process.

    Sub RangeFind2()

    ‘Identifying the last row in the Run time table with data

    Sheets(“Run time table”).Select
    Range(“B” & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Select
    Selection.Copy
    Sheets(“HG1700AG33”).Select
    Columns(“B:B”).Select
    Selection.Find(What:=”630812″, After:=ActiveCell,
    LookIn:=xlFormulas2, _
    LookAt:=xlPart, SearchOrder:=xlByRows,
    SearchDirection:=xlNext, _
    MatchCase:=False, SearchFormat:=False).Activate
    MsgBox ActiveCell.Row
    Range(“C788:P788”).Copy
    Sheets(“Run time table”).Range(“C213:P213”).PasteSpecial
    xlPasteValues
    Application.CutCopyMode = False

    End Sub

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