How to find broken links in Excel

Use this tool to quickly find all broken external references in your Excel sheet. Get all the found links displayed on the add-in pane, review and fix them.

Note. Please note, the tool checks references to other Excel sheets and cells only, hyperlinks are not supported.

Open Excel table where you need to find links and run the add-in by clicking the Find Broken Links icon in the Search group on the Ablebits Tools tab:
Run Find Broken Links.
You will see all broken links displayed in a tree view on the add-in pane:
Find valid and invalid external links.
If you want the tool to display not only broken links but all the found ones, untick the Broken links only checkbox and click the Refresh button. The broken links will be marked by a light red background:
Find all links.
Also, you can select the type of links to be shown by opening the drop-down list:
Find all links.

To fix a link, right-click it on the add-in pane and select the needed action:
Fix external broken links, edit the path, change book or worksheet.

  • You can click Change Path and set the right source directory:
    Change path and find the correct file.
  • To browse for the folder with the correct linked file, pick Change Workbook or Change Sheet:
    Change worksheet or workbook to correct a reference.

How to open source files

To open the linked file, right-click the reference on the add-in panel and select the Open Source option:
Open the linked file.