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: Extracting E-mail Addresses from Hyperlinks.

Extracting E-mail Addresses from Hyperlinks

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated April 16, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365


Do you have a worksheet that has a bunch of e-mail addresses in it, as a series of hyperlinks? If so, you may be interested in a way to pull out those addresses and put them into cells as plain text. There are a few ways you can perform this task.

The first method is to remember that the hyperlinks for e-mail addresses all start with the text "mailto" followed by a colon. Thus, you can use a formula that will strip out the first part of the hyperlink. For instance, if the e-mail hyperlink is in cell A1, you can use this formula:

=RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-7)

This checks the length of the cell contents, and then extracts all of it except the first seven characters, which is the "mailto:" portion. You could also use a formula that relies on the SUBSTITUTE function:

=SUBSTITUTE(A1,"mailto:","")

If you prefer, you can use a macro to do the conversion from hyperlink to text-only e-mail address. The following single-line macro is a user-defined function that returns the converted hyperlink:

Function ExtractEmailAddress(rCell As Range)
    ExtractEmailAddress = _
      Mid(rCell.Hyperlinks(1).Address, 8)
End Function

In order to use the macro, all you need to do is use the function in some cell of your worksheet, in this manner:

=ExtractEmailAddress(A1)

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 (12000) 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: Extracting E-mail Addresses from Hyperlinks.

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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