Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 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: Finding the Last-Used Cell in a Macro.

Finding the Last-Used Cell in a Macro

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 5, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365


1

If you are working in a worksheet, you know that you can press Ctrl+End to jump to the last-cell in the worksheet. The shortcut chooses the cell that represents the intersection of the last column containing data and the last row containing data. Thus, if the last column in which you have data is column F, and the last row in which you have data is row 27, then Ctrl+End will select cell F27.

To do this same task from a macro, you use a very simple command, as shown here:

Sub FindLast1()
    ActiveCell.SpecialCells(xlLastCell).Select
End Sub

This is functionally the same as pressing Ctrl+End. However (and this is a big issue), Excel doesn't dynamically keep track of which rows and columns are the last used in a worksheet. For instance, let's suppose that you open a workbook, press Ctrl+End, and you are taken to cell F27. If you then delete three rows and one column, you would expect that Ctrl+End would take you to cell E24. It doesn't; it still takes you to cell F27 until you save the workbook and reopen it.

This same problem affects the macro code shown in the FindLast1 macro; it will take you to the "highest" cell, regardless of which columns or rows you have deleted during the current session.

What's needed is a way to reset the "last cell" indicator, just as if you had saved and reopened the workbook. There is no intrinsic macro command that does that, but there is a way to force Excel to do the reset. All you need to do is adjust the macro as follows:

Sub FindLast2()
    x = ActiveSheet.UsedRange.Rows.Count
    ActiveCell.SpecialCells(xlLastCell).Select
End Sub

This macro always takes you to the proper cell—it works as you would expect Ctrl+End to always work. It works because apparently Excel, when it calculates the Count property for the number of rows in the worksheet, always resets the "last cell" indicator. You can also rely on the UsedRange object in a different manner:

Sub FindLast3()
    ActiveSheet.UsedRange.SpecialCells(xlLastCell).Select
End Sub

The result, again, is that the desired last cell is selected.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the ExcelTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (11526) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Finding the Last-Used Cell in a Macro.

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. ...

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What is two minus 1?

2022-02-05 09:55:28

J. Woolley

The Range.SpecialCells method does not work correctly when referenced directly or indirectly in a user defined function (UDF). For more on this subject, see https://www.excelanytime.com/excel/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=86:last-used-row-last-used-column-vba&catid=79&Itemid=475#Use%20End(xlUp)


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