Selecting to the Bottom of a Column in a Macro

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 2, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

Ian has a macro in which he needs to select a range of cells, from the fifth row of a column to the last value in the column. There may be blank cells in the range, but Ian needs to select everything through whatever the last-used cell is in the column.

Selecting the last used cell in a column is fairly straightforward—you use the .End method to locate the cell. For instance, you could use the following single line to select the desired range in column A, from A5 (the fifth row, as Ian indicated) through the last-used cell:

Range("A5",Range("A" & Rows.Count).End(xlUp)).Select

The .Count property when used with the Rows collection returns a numeric value for the total number of rows in the worksheet. Taking it one step further and applying the .End method specifies that the returned range should be just the last-used cell in the column. Note that the macro line assumes you want to select the cells in column A. It is very possible, of course, that you might want to select cells in a different column. The best way to accommodate that is to simply make sure that the "A" portion of the macro is a variable:

sColWanted = "A"
Range(sColWanted & "5",Range(sColWanted & Rows.Count).End(xlUp)).Select

You could even wrap the lines in a subroutine that could then be called from another macro:

Sub SelectCells(sCol As String)
    Range(sCol & "5",Range(sCol & Rows.Count).End(xlUp)).Select
End Sub

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ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (13818) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021.

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. Learn more about Allen...

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What is four more than 5?

2021-01-03 10:37:41

J. Woolley

There is a typo error in the next-to-last statement of my modified Sub SelectCells(...) below. Although
Range(sCol & "5", Range(sCol & lastRow)).Select
works as intended, it should be written more clearly as
Range(sCol & "5", sCol & lastRow).Select

2021-01-02 10:19:54

J. Woolley

The Tip's final subroutine will not select everything if the column's last-used cell is in a hidden row (by filtering, for example). This modification will:
Sub SelectCells(sCol As String)
lastRow = Columns(sCol).Find(What:="*", _
After:=Columns(sCol).Cells(1), _
LookAt:=xlPart, _
LookIn:=xlFormulas, _
SearchOrder:=xlByRows, _
SearchDirection:=xlPrevious, _
MatchCase:=False).Row
Range(sCol & "5", Range(sCol & lastRow)).Select
End Sub

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