How to find broken links in Excel

Use the Find Broken Links 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. 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 Find Broken Links pane:
Find valid and invalid external links.
If you want the tool to display not only broken links but all the found ones, clear 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.

Responses

Why isn't there an option to remove ALL the links or at least the BROKEN links?

Lydeth

Hello Lydeth,

Thank you for your question.

Please specify if you'd like to have an opportunity to clear the list with the found links on the add-in pane or you want to remove the links from the worksheet with your data. I'll forward your request to our developers for consideration.

In the meantime, I recommend having a look at the following articles on our blog:
How remove multiple hyperlinks from Excel worksheets
How to find and remove external links in Excel

Hope this information will be helpful.

I just got this installed. I am working on spreadsheet that is nothing but hyperlinks that lead to a pdf file. When I try to look for broken links, it states, "There are no references to Other files in this worksheet." Any help is appreciated.

Post a comment

Seen by everyone, do not publish license keys and sensitive personal info!

If you have any questions or issues with this add-in, please feel free to post your concerns in the comments area. As soon as we answer, a notification message will be sent to your e-mail. If you do not want to share your thoughts in public, please contact us at support@ablebits.com.