The tutorial explains the basics of Excel's Advanced Filter and shows how to use it to find the records that meet one or more complex criteria.
If you had a chance to read our previous tutorial, you know that Excel Filter provides a variety of options for different data types. Those inbuilt filtering options for text, numbers, and dates can handle many scenarios. Many, but not all! When a regular AutoFilter can't do what you want, use the Advanced Filter tool and configure the criteria exactly suited to your needs.
Excel's Advanced Filter is really helpful when it comes to finding data that meets two or more complex criteria such as extracting matches and differences between two columns, filtering rows that match items in another list, finding exact matches including uppercase and lowercase characters, and more.
Advanced Filter is available in all versions of Excel 2016, Excel 2013, Excel 2010, Excel 2007, and Excel 2003. Please click on the links below to learn more.
Compared to the basic AutoFilter tool, Advanced Filter works differently in a couple of important ways.
Advanced Filter cannot be applied automatically since it has no pre-defined setup, it requires configuring the list range and criteria range manually.
Using Advanced Filter, you can find rows that meet multiple criteria in multiple columns, and the advanced criteria need to be entered in a separate range on your worksheet.
Below you will find the detailed guidance on how to use Advanced Filter in Excel as well as some useful examples of advanced filters for text and numeric values.
Using Excel Advanced Filter is not as easy as applying AutoFilter (as is the case with many "advanced" things :) but it's definitely worth the effort. To create an advanced filter for your sheet, perform the following steps.
For better results, arrange your data set following these 2 simple rules:
For example, here's how our sample table looks like:
Type your conditions, aka criteria, in a separate range on the worksheet. In theory, the criteria range can reside anywhere in the sheet. In practice, it's more convenient to place it at the top and separate from the data set with one or more blank rows.
Advanced criteria notes:
For example, to filter records for the North region whose Sub-total is greater than or equal to 900, set up the following criteria range:
For the detailed information about the comparison operators, wildcards and formulas that you can use in your criteria, please see Advanced Filter criteria range.
In the criteria range in place, apply an advanced filter in this way:
In Excel 2003, click the Data menu, point to Filter, and then click Advanced Filter….
The Excel Advanced Filter dialog box will appear and you set it up as explained below.
In the Excel Advanced Filter dialog window, specify the following parameters:
Selecting "Filter the list in place" will hide the rows that don't match your criteria.
If you choose "Copy the results to another location", select the upper-left cell of the range where you want to paste the filtered rows. Make sure the destination range has no data anywhere in the columns because all cells below the copied range will be cleared.
If you've selected any cell in your data set before clicking the Advanced button, Excel will pick the entire list range automatically. If Excel got the list range wrong, click the Collapse Dialog icon to the immediate right of the List Range box, and select the desired range using the mouse.
In addition, the check box in the lower-left corner of the Advanced Filter dialog window lets you display unique records only. For instance, this option can help you extract all different (distinct) items in a column.
In this example, we are filtering the list in place, so configure the Excel Advanced Filter parameters in this way:
Finally, click OK, and you will get the following result:
This is great… but the same result can actually be achieved with the normal Excel AutoFilter, right? Anyway, please don't hurry to leave this page, because we have only scratched the surface so you've got the basic idea of how Excel Advanced Filter works. Further on in the article, you will find a few examples that can only be done with advanced filter. To make things easier for you to follow, let's learn more about the Advanced Filter criteria first.
As you have just seen, there is no rocket science in using Advanced Filter in Excel. But once you learn the nitty-gritty details of the Advanced Filter criteria, your options will be almost unlimited!
In the Advanced Filter criteria, you can compare different numeric values using the following comparison operators.
Comparison operator | Meaning | Example |
= | Equal to | A1=B1 |
> | Greater than | A1>B1 |
< | Less than | A1<B1 |
>= | Greater than or equal to | A1>=B1 |
<= | Less than or equal to | A1<=B1 |
<> | Not equal to | A1<>B1 |
The usage of comparison operators with numbers is obvious. In the above example, we already used the numeric criteria >=900 to filter records with Subtotal greater than or equal to 900.
And here's another example. Supposing you want to display the North region records for the month of July with Amount greater than 800. For this, specify the following conditions in the criteria range:
And now, run the Excel Advanced Filter tool, specify the List range (A4:D50) and Criteria range (A2:D2) and you will get the following result:
Apart from numbers and dates, you can also use the logical operators to compare text values. The rules are defined in the table below.
Criteria | Description |
="=text" |
Filter cells whose values are exactly equal to "text". |
text |
Filter cells whose contents begin with "text". |
<>text |
Filter cells whose values are not exactly equal to "text" (cells containing "text" as part of their contents will be included in the filter). |
>text |
Filter cells whose values are alphabetically ordered after "text". |
<text |
Filter cells whose values are alphabetically ordered before "text". |
As you see, creating an advanced filter for text values has a number of specificities, so let's elaborate more on this.
To display only those cells that are exactly equal to a specific text or character, include the equal sign in the criteria.
For instance, to filter only Banana items, use the following criteria: ="=banana". Microsoft Excel will display the criteria as =banana in a cell, but you can view the entire expression in the formula bar:
As you can see in the screenshot above, the criteria ="=banana" shows only the Banana records with Sub-total greater than or equal to 900, ignoring Green banana and Goldfinger banana.
To display all cells whose contents begin with a specified text, just type that text in the criteria range without the equal sign or double quotes.
For example, to filter all "green" items with subtotal greater than or equal to 900, use the following criteria:
To filter text records with partial match, you can use the following wildcard characters in the Advanced Filter criteria:
The following table provides a few criteria range examples with wildcards.
Criteria | Description | Example |
*text* |
Filter cells that contain "text". | *banana* finds all cells containing the word "banana", e.g. "green bananas". |
??text |
Filter cells whose contents begin with any two characters, followed by "text". | ??banana finds cells containing the word "banana" preceded with any 2 characters, like "1#banana" or "//banana". |
text*text |
Filter cells that begin with "text" AND contain a second occurrence of "text" anywhere in the cell. | banana*banana finds cells that begin with the word "banana" and contain another occurrence of "banana" further in the text, e.g. "banana green vs. banana yellow". |
="=text*text" |
Filter cells that begin with AND end with "text". | ="=banana*banana" finds cells that begin and end with the word "banana", e.g. "banana, tasty banana". |
="=text1?text2" |
Filter cells that begin with "text1", end with "text2", and contain exactly one character in between. | ="=banana?orange" finds cells that begin the word "banana", end with the word "orange" and contain any single character in between, e.g. "banana/orange" or "banana*orange". |
text~** |
Filter cells that begin with "text", followed by *, followed by any other character(s). | banana~** finds cells that begin with "banana" followed by asterisk, followed any other text, like "banana*green" or "banana*yellow". |
="=?????" |
Filters cells with text values that contain exactly 5 characters. | ="=?????" finds cells with any text containing exactly 5 characters, like "apple" or "lemon". |
And here is the simplest wildcard criteria in action (*banana*), which finds all cells containing the word "banana":
To create an advanced filter with more complex conditions, you can use one or more Excel functions in the criteria range. For the formula-based criteria to work correctly, please follow these rules:
For example, to filter rows where August sales (column C) are greater than July sales (column D), use the criteria =D5>C5, where 5 is the first row of data:
For more complex examples of multiple criteria based on formulas, please see How to use Advanced Filter in Excel - criteria range examples.
As already mentioned in the beginning of this tutorial, Excel Advanced filter can work with AND as well as OR logic depending on how you set up the criteria range:
To make things easier to understand, consider the following examples.
To display records with Sub-total >=900 AND Average >=350, define both criteria on the same row:
To display records with Sub-total >=900 OR Average >=350, place each condition on a separate row:
To display records for the North region with Sub-total greater than or equal to 900 OR Average greater than or equal to 350, set up the criteria range in this way:
To put it differently, the criteria range in this example translates to the following condition:
(Region=North AND Sub-total>=900) OR (Region=North AND Average >=350)
="=North"
.When configuring Advanced Filter so that it copies the results to another location, you can specify which columns to extract.
For instance, to copy the data summary such as Region, Item and Sub-total based on the specified criteria range type the 3 column labels in cells H1:J1 (please see the screenshot below).
As the result, Excel has filtered the rows according to the conditions listed in the criteria range (North region items with Sub-total >=900), and copied the 3 columns to the specified location:
If you open the Advanced Filter tool in the worksheet containing your original data, choose "Copy to another location" option, and select the Copy to range in another sheet, you would end up with the following error message: "You can only copy filtered data to the active sheet".
However, there is a way to copy filtered rows to another worksheet, and you have already got the clue - just start Advanced Filter from the destination sheet, so that it will be your active sheet.
Supposing, your original table is in Sheet1, and you want to copy the filtered data to Sheet2. Here's a super simple way to get it done:
In this example, we are extracting 4 columns to Sheet2, so we typed the corresponding column headings exactly as they appear in Sheet1, and selected the range containing the headings (A1:D1) in the Copy to box:
Basically, this is how you use the Advanced Filter in Excel. In the next tutorial, we will have a closer look at more complex criteria range examples based on formulas, so please stay tuned!
52 responses to "Excel Advanced Filter - how to create and use"
Hi I need a formula that will track how many times a patient should been seen every 6 months (ex. Start date 1/1/2016 - ytd how many times was the patient seen?
hi,
you can use countifs function.
thanks alot for exact match.
I can't get my advanced filter to allow my criteria to filter my copy-to range. any suggestions? I believe I have followed this example and cannot get a filter to work...
THANKS...........
Hi I want to filter gps data from two columns (latitude,longitude)but I also need to filter them in order to have a range from 1 to 4 lets say is that possible? and how
Thanks
when i doing advance filtering, i got the the error message after clicking "ok" .."the extract range has a missing or invalid feild name".
please give me the solution.
Respected Madam,
please explain us this topic(Advanced filter) with video demonstration.your guidance with step by step is also very helpful
I am looking a formula which can filter after satisfying the conditions..
I have 500 list of activities in column A, dates ( EX: 01-Jan-2017 to 31-Dec-2017 in format ) in Column B and in Column C ( Three different items like Complete, Pending, Ongoing etc)
Now I would like to extract out of 500 activities in column A , In January Month how many completed , How many pending & how many ongoing status in quantity.
Please can you help on this. Thanks for your support
Hi Naga,
You can try a Count if Function.
=Countif( Range(Month),”January”)
Or you can convert your data in to pivot table and easily you can count you data montly.
thanks alot for exact match i need
Hi. I can do an advanced filter using data on Sheet 1 and filter it onto Sheets 2-5 using different criteria for each time. However, I want the filters to automatically update when I add data to Sheet 1.
For example, I have data in cells A2:E28 on Sheet 1 and have filtered successfully onto the four sheets using different criteria each time. However, when I add a new row of data into A29:E29 on Sheet 1, I want this to automatically be filtered as per the advanced filters without having to reapply the filters each time.
Any help would be great. Thanks in advance.
Hi, David,
unfortunately, it's not possible.
As it is stated in the article: "Advanced Filter cannot be applied automatically since it has no pre-defined setup, it requires configuring the list range and criteria range manually."
Im doing a project on track and field but want to find out athletes at peak (ie season best=personal best) but was disqualified
how would i write that in criteria cells
these are the fields
Time ran , season best, personal best
Thanks a lot. very good article. I solved my problem following your tutorial.
Hello,
I'm a beginner at excel and I'm trying to filter more than one criteria that "does not begin with." Is there a criteria range for "does not being with?" I have more than 5 I need to filter from one column.
Hello, Samantha,
try the following.

Create an additional table for the Advanced filter, entering your conditions in one line and giving each column the name of the corresponding column to filter – 'name' in our example. Type your criteria: <>x*, where '<>' means 'not equal to' and '*' allows matching any sequence of characters after 'x'. Thus, you will have 'does not begin with x' condition. Add other 5 of your own conditions, and apply advanced filter.
Dear Sir,
Have a Great Day Ahead,
Please see below mentioned data that I tried my best for your better understanding.
I want result in Cell E3 when I filter data in Cell A7, (Vendor Name should be appear in Cell E3). Hope to hear from you as soon as possible.
BR/
Hussain
(Cell E3) Vendor Name: Abdul Aziz Fahad Al Hajri Est
(Cell A7) Vendor Name
Mana Al-Haider Cont. Est.
Ali-Ahmed-Al-Kanfari Gen. Co. Est.
Abdul Aziz Fahad Al Hajri Est
Danat Al-Rayan
Hi
how to exclude rows with more than one simultaneous conditions
eg.: if I want to exclude from my data all the region = west and fruit = coconuts:
It should be something like:
Region west and Fruit coconuts
I mean select all my data except when we have region =West and Fruit = coconuts at the same time
I'm guessing you've either solved your problem or given up by now, but leaving this here in case it is useful for anyone else.
NOT (AND (A,B)) is equivalent to OR(NOT(A),NOT(B)), so you can do this with:
Region Fruit
West
(blank) Coconuts
The comment form ate my brackets - Both the criteria rows there should have the "not" operator before them (the paired set of angled brackets)
Hi,
I have a problem with filter button in excel using VBA code. When I filtered the data, the header name of each column in the worksheet its does not appear. I just can't figure this out. Can you help me?
Hi Ayaa,
Please look for a solution on one of these forums: http://www.mrexcel / http://www.excelforum.com.
I'm sorry I can't help you better.
hi,
please, where I can find the workbook for this article.
thank you
Hi Thank you, it is good article.
I have one question. I want to exclude items which dones not begins with specific letters. I have dump data of sales and I want to exclude invoice number, which does not begins with CN.
i WANT AUTOMATIC FILTER ANOTHER SHEET
Hi,
Possible to have running total in a column with advance filter criteria?
Thanks
Hi,
How do I format a table so that it only shows rows with a specific number in them? Here's the project step that I'm having trouble with:
Filter the table to display only those records with a Number of Days value of 7
Thanks!
Why does my data disappear even though I am entering the criteria and list ranges correctly.Please help
Thanks in advance!
Hi. I need to select rows, which DESCRIPTION (name of the column) contains words (apple OR orange OR melon) AND (2017). So it should have both apple and 2017 or orange and 2017.
What should a filter look like?
Thanks.
So I currently have a google survey form that my district can input their appointments in for tracking. The form includes the store number that input the appointment but as of right now, they all filter to one sheet. I have added a tab for each store but I am wondering how can I create a formula or a filter that will auto sort the full row of appointment content to the store's respective tabs within the same worksheet.
Lovely clear explanation of this function - it's the best I've seen by far. Thank you Svetlana!
hello
i want to formula in that in one cell i will put any date and tat same multiple date will mark
plz suggest
Don’t know if anyone is answering these anymore. Is it possible to do this : ( where “col” = Colomn ).
(ColA=X. OR colB=Y) AND (colD=Z OR ColE=Q) ??? Note that there actually could be up to 4 items in each of thouse () or statements. Thanks
Another "not sure if this is going to be useful to you, but it might be to someone browsing later". You can do this with a formula - type it as if you are doing it for the first row to be filtered.
i.e.
Filter
=AND(OR(A2="X",B2="Y"),OR(D2="Z",E2="Q"))
Quotes only required if X,Y,Z,Q are strings. Then your criterion range is the cell containing "filter" (or a blank cell, or a cell containing anything else which is not a heading in the filtered range) and the cell containing the formula, and no other cells.
How do I look at already defined filters? I created some advanced filters and they work great. However I need to copy the tab and update the filter with the updated new tab. I'm filtering by a name and each tab will have a unique name. When I copied the tab it used the same criteria as the original tab and did not update the name in the new tab. I've click around to find where the Advanced filters were defined but cannot find it. Is there a way to look at defined filters on a tab?
Hello
Thank you for below topic was struggling from last 2 days to complete this task.
"How to copy filtered rows to another worksheet"
I was wondering if there was a way to filter multiple items from the same column. For example, if I wanted to find under the Item column all rows that have "Apples" and "Cherries" and "Banana".
Hi,
If any condition is failed in my criteria, only 1st row is getting blank and not clearing the my previous filtered data. How to clear my previous filtered data? Please help.
Hi,
I want to change the headings names in criteria range but I don't know how.
For example: if I want to add the column DATE to the criteria range but instead of copying the heading DATE from the main table, I name it YEAR.
Can I do that and how?
Hi,
Sharing my problem with a thinking that it will be solved at this forum.
If a content in a cell starts with {,[or | what will be the format to get the filter results.
Please help if any body know.
Hello Sohaib!
As a criteria of advanced filter, please use {* or [* where an asterisk replaces any sequence of symbols.
Hope you’ll find this information helpful.
Hi team,
How to filter the text with begin and ending letters using advanced filter
Hello Tharun!
Read above -
https://www.ablebits.com/office-addins-blog/2016/09/07/excel-advanced-filter/#filter-wildcard-criteria
Hello, thanks I was able to use the advanced filter. Now I would like to extend it with another lookup column, any way to this?
i.e. my filter criteria contains "pencil", so the advanced filter shows both results:
Blue pencil
Red pencil
I have a price of 1€ for "pencil". Can I add the price to both filtered rows, resulting in:
Blue pencil 1€
Red pencil 1€
I need help. I cannot find a way to do it with advanced filter.
Can I email you my query?
I have an advanced filter that filters data in A21 to B589. I need to edit it to only filter data in A21 to B585. Every time I try to change the list range, it deletes my filter. How do I make this simple edit?
Hi I have an excel table populated with structured language formulae. I also have in the same table a column with plain text. That column allows me to select certain table rows. I want to extract those rows matching the selection to another table. Can I use the advanced filter for that task?
I have found that If I convert the table to one containing values only then the advanced filter works, but it doesn't seem to work if the table contains formulae .
Hi Team
Thank you for the fabulous tips and hints on advanced filter.
I have just seen and followed your tutorial on multiple Vlookup with example on sellers and products (return values either by column or row) using CSE. It was a bit trick using helper functions like small combined with row/column.
I was just wondering if the results given by multiple Vlookup could be obtained using the advanced filter.
Thank you for all your unconditional support.
Would a advanced filter applied to a sharepoint list automatically update as data is added?
I need to use windows calendar for the date and then use that date as criteria of advance filter. How to use the date in criteria which is in another cell like if my date is in D1 02/16/2021 and my criteria place is at A2
A1 Hire Date
A2 =D1 ( this is not working)