Finding Cells that Use Conditional Formatting

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 11, 2026)

When you inherit a worksheet from someone, you may want to discover which cells have conditional formatting applied to them. This is rather easy to do using the Go To feature of Excel. Follow these steps:

  1. Press F5. Excel displays the Go To dialog box.
  2. Click Special. Excel displays the Go To Special dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

    3. Figure 1. The Go To Special dialog box.

  3. Select the Conditional Formats radio button.
  4. Click OK.

That's it. Excel selects all the cells in the current worksheet that have conditional formatting applied to them.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (6817) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Using Graphics to Represent Data Series

You can spice up your bar chart by using a graphic, of your choosing, to construct the bars. This tip shows how easy it ...

Discover More

Keeping Part of a Paragraph with the Next Block of Text

If you are a WordPerfect user, you may be very familiar with the block-protect feature and wonder if there is a similar ...

Discover More

Printing and Exiting Word in a Macro

When you print a document, Word remains busy in the background until the printing is done. If you try to end the program ...

Discover More

Program Successfully in Excel! This guide will provide you with all the information you need to automate any task in Excel and save time and effort. Learn how to extend Excel's functionality with VBA to create solutions not possible with the standard features. Includes latest information for Excel 2024 and Microsoft 365. Check out Mastering Excel VBA Programming today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Conditionally Formatting Cells Containing Dates

Need to know if a particular cell contains a date value? Excel doesn't have a worksheet function to determine this ...

Discover More

Highlighting Cells with Text Over a Certain Length

Conditional formatting can provide a dynamic way to format your cells based on criteria you specify. In this tip, you ...

Discover More

Conditionally Highlighting Cells Containing Formulas

Excel's conditional formatting feature allows you to create formats that are based on a wide variety of criteria. If you ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 7 - 7?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.

Links and Sharing
OUR COMPANY
OUR PRODUCTS
OUR SITES
 

Copyright © 2026 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.