Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Office 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Grabbing a User's Name from Excel.
Mark has a worksheet where he wants to record the name of a user, but rather than asking the user to fill in a form, he wants to automatically grab their username from Excel.
The username that a person sets in Excel when first installing the software or when changing the general options for the program cannot be accessed via formula. Instead, you need to use a macro to access the information and then make it available to your worksheet. This is possible through the use of a user-defined function. Consider the following simple example:
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Office 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: 
Function GetUserName()
GetUserName = Application.UserName
End Function
Note that the macro does nothing more than to access the UserName property of the Application object. You use this function in your worksheet in the following manner:
=GetUserName()
With this simple formula in a cell, the username is displayed in the cell.
Note:
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (9814) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Office 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Grabbing a User's Name from Excel.
Comprehensive VBA Guide Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the language used for writing macros in all Office programs. This complete guide shows both professionals and novices how to master VBA in order to customize the entire Office suite for their needs. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2010 today!
It makes sense that when Excel creates a blank workbook, it must figure out which font to use for that workbook. ...
Discover MoreAs the limits on what you can store in Excel have increased, so has the need to consider how to make your workbooks and ...
Discover MoreClick on a cell and you expect the single cell to be selected. If you instead get a group of cells, it can be frustrating ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
2016-05-11 13:22:19
Dex Luther
This worked perfectly.
This shows a person's name as "Lastname, Firstname". I was wondering if there was a way to switch it to show "Firstname Lastname"
2015-12-16 18:29:36
Dawn
Could something similar be used to pull in specific Workbook Properties?
For example: I'd like to auto-populate a cell with the contents of the "Tags" (sometimes also called "Keywords") property field as shown on the Excel Info Properties view.
2015-10-14 04:17:14
Gareth Crothers
I'm looking to to add the user name of the person who adds information to a Excel document from an in house server.
Similar to the date formulae where it retrieves the date from your Mac, is there a way I can create something to retrieve the user name of their Mac?
Thanks in advance!
2015-04-06 11:36:10
Scott Renz
Thanks, Larry Conrad,
What is "WinNT"?
My computer doesn't seem to like it.
2015-04-06 08:46:50
Larry Conrad
Here is a code snippet I use to get User info from a network id.
Dim UsrDomain As String
Dim UsrId As String
Dim UsrName As String
Dim ADUser As Object
UsrDomain = Environ("USERDOMAIN")
UsrId = Environ("USERNAME")
Set ADUser = GetObject("WinNT://" & UsrDomain & "/" & UsrId)
UsrName = Mid(ADUser.FullName, InStr(1, ADUser.FullName, ",") + 2, 30) & " " & _
Left(ADUser.FullName, InStr(1, ADUser.FullName, ",") - 1)
2015-04-04 09:36:07
Gerhard Schweizer
It should be mentioned that this username is just the name within MS Office, not (necessarily) the Windows username. To retrieve the latter, another function must be used
2015-04-04 05:37:43
ravi kumar mathur
very good and useful tip, thanks
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.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2020 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Comments