Comments on: How to sum and count cells by color in Excel

Even though Microsoft Excel has a variety of functions for different purposes, none can count or sum by color of a cell. Aside from third-party tools, there is only one possible solution - create your own functions. Continue reading →

Comments page 10. Total comments: 728

  1. Hi This Article is really usefull and saved a day to me..

    Thanks for posting this...

  2. The Code is useful but when I saved it as xlsm format and reopen it the next day the Calculation is gone. I would need to add in the code again and recalculate again.

    Please advise if it can be saved in the document itself?

    Thanks and regards,
    Rebecca

    1. Rebecca,
      When you open it up just press enable macro again and it recalulates

      Nige

  3. Excellent code and even better follow up assistance, from what I can see above at least.

    I a using the SumCellsByColor command code to prepare a timesheet for employees working on different jobs using the colors to sum the different 'types' of time (Normal, OT, Onshore, Offshore). I have individual tabs assigned for each employee and am using a separate 'summary' tab to bring all the information together. It is easy to prepare a summary for each employee and the type of time (using your code). However I also want to track the time spent on individual job numbers (job numbers are marked as lines on each tab with the columns being dates).

    Basically, as it is possible that each job is worked on by separate employees, I want to be able to show what type of time is being spent on each job number on my 'summary' tab.

    Can you make any sense of that? I think I may have even confused myself! haha!

    Any assistance is much appreciated!

    Thanks & Regards,

    David

  4. Really a handy tool. Saved a lot of time :-)
    Thanks for sharing it!

  5. Hello,

    First off, I love this code. I am brand new to macros and this walk-through helped me out tremendously, so thank you! I would like to use this macro with another formula, if possible. Here is what I am looking for:

    I am comparing data across multiple sheets based on the color of the cells to indicate what sales stage the contract is in as well as their expiration dates. For the report I'm trying to create, I have columns in place to show which contracts will expire 120 days from today, 90 days from today, 60 days from today, and 30 days from today. The rows indicate the sales stage that the contract is in. The columns are based on an IF statement using TODAY as the volatile factor and the rows are based on the lovely macro you have created, using each cell color as the indicator of which specific sales stage the contract is in. Since the first row indicates that the contract is in a Not Contacted state, I would like to have each row below that not only count up the number of cells that have a specific expiration date and background color, but also subtract from the Not Contacted row.

    I feel like this would require an IF statement within the macro, however I am so new to macros that I am not really sure where to begin with this one. If my explanation is confusing at all, I apologize. Any and all help is appreciated!

    Thanks,
    Antionette

  6. I can't get the macro to show when I press Alt+F8. I copied the code multiple times.

  7. This code has worked wonderfully.

    Thank you!

  8. This code was a god send... It worked wonderfully and has sped up the time it takes to complete a report I have to do each month by at least 50%

    Thanks :)

  9. This code has worked wonderfully, thank you! I only have one issue. When I saved the workbook, I saved it as a macro-enabled workbook as you instructed. I have opened the spreadsheet, and the macros are enabled because the formulas all work correctly. However...

    There is a graph in my workbook, and now - when I click on the chart - it has an error that says "Cannot run the macro "name of chart_Click'. The macro may not be available in this workbook or all macros may be disabled." Do you know why I would get this error?

    Thank you!

  10. Is there a way to count cells of a specific color and containing a specific text? Say the name Bill appears on a sheet 10 times and 5 of the cells have been manually colored red. Is there a way to count how many times cells containing the text "Bill" and background filled red?

    1. Hi Brian,

      Yes, this is possible now, we've updated the code of the functions. Please copy the updated code to your workbook and then enter the following array formula (remember to press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to complete it):
      =SUM((A1:B13="Bill")*(GetCellColor(A1:B13)=GetCellColor(D1)))

      Where A1:B13 is the range where you want to count the occurrence of the word "Bill", and
      D1 is the helper cell with the color sample, e.g. red.

      You can also type =GetCellColor(D1) in any cell, copy the result and paste it to your formula instead of calling GetCellColor(D1). In this case you don't need the helper cell.

    2. =COUNTIFS(A1:L326, A330, A1:L326, getcellcolor(A330))

      Tried this and got "0" when, in fact there were 2 that met the criteria.

      A330 is a text value of a person's name as well as being filled with the reference color. I have tried it with "text value of 330" and "=text value of A330".

  11. Hi!

    Thank you for this script! I had problems when I tried to use it on Excel 2010. Excel said that it isn't valid formula and it has some errors.

    But then I replaced "," --> ";" and it worked (like this: =SumCellsByColor(D2:D14;A17).

    1. Hi!

      Most likely this is because you have the List Separator set to ";" in your Windows Regional Settings, so you should use a semicolon in all of your Excel formulas.

      1. I think it would be quite beneficial to mention this comma vs. semicolon option in the tutorial. It would have saved me a lot of time.. Thanks for the functions anyway, now that I got them working by replacing "," with ";" :)

  12. Just to follow up on my previous comment. I had already found http://www.get-digital-help.com/2013/10/02/counting-conditionally-formatted-cells-vba/ which works great in their example. We have pretty complicated conditional formatting on multiple cells. If I choose more than a row or a column or have a cell in the range that does not have the conditional formatting, I get a #Value. I do not really understand why theirs works as a function, but in a limited fashion, and yours works all the time as a sub...

    1. Hello Shelli,

      I have not tested their code, but it looks like it works only with conditional formatting rules based on formulas that changed the cell's background color, if true. I am not sure it will work with color scales. This code should also be checked with regard to min/max/duplicates.

      Also, the code implies that each conditional formatting rule found in the selected range applies to ALL selected cells. If it is not so, then the code will return #Value or even throw some VBA execution error.

  13. So confused about the "How to count by color and sum cells colored using conditional formatting" needing to be a sub and not a function. Not sure I understand what the limitation is. I am still playing with it. Works perfectly as a sub but need to get the count in a cell.

    1. Hello Shelli,

      Regrettably, there is no easy way to implement this as a function. I mean the function that would correctly handle all possible variations of conditional formatting. This would require a great deal of VBA code, tedious debugging and testing against different Excel versions and various Office localizations. (That is why the other solution you've tried works in simple scenarios and does not work with complex conditional formatting).

      So, our Excel specialists have weighed the pros and cons and created the Count & Sum add-in, which caters for all possible scenarios and works correctly with all Excel versions and all kinds of conditional formatting. You can download the evaluation version and try it out on your data.

  14. Great stuff! Exactly what I was looking for...

    Thank you so much!

  15. Many thanks for this article. The instructions, code and functionality were excellent and exactly what I was looking for.

  16. Or better still - how can I build a sumif formula around coloured cells. For example =sumif(range, [CellColour], [sum_range])?

    1. You can use the SumCellsByColor function to sum the values of cells of a given color in the selected range. Or, are you looking for something different?

      1. Hi Svetlana,

        Yes, looking for something a bit different, the cells that contain the values I want to sum are in a different row to the coloured cells so would be looking to do a calculation similar to the sumif function

        Cheers

        1. Hi Wazza,

          Thank you for the clarification, I understand now. Regrettably, this is not possible because our functions do not support array formulas.

  17. This is genius. However, would vlookup and hlookup by cell colour be possible. For example, =vlookup([CellColour],table_array, column_index_num, [range_lookup])?

    1. Hello Wazza,

      You need to add only one function to your workbook – GetCellColor. Then add an additional column to your lookup table, this should be the first, i.e. left-most column, and copy the following formula to it: =GetCellColor(F2). F2 is the needed cell color.

      An then, you use this formula =vlookup(GetCellColor(A1).... where A1 is the color-coded cell.

  18. Thanks for the prompt response. It worked. Hopefully, the add in that you / Aex is developing will work in both scenarios. Keep up the good work guys. Thanks

    1. Hi Samir,

      Our new add-in, Count & Sum by Color, is finished and available for download. And yes, it works in both scenarios and in all versions of Excel!

  19. sorry - im new to excel :|

    here's an example - i wanted it to count only "red" when Number is filtered to "1"

    A B C D Number
    red green orange 1
    orange red green 2
    orange red green 3
    red green orange 1
    orange red green 2
    red green orange 3

    i believe this can be achieved by selecting the range manually but is there a way to do this without doing it manually?

    1. Hi Dniens,

      Our code counts all cells in the selected range, including filtered and hidden cells. To be able to tell you with certainty if we can help you achieve the result you want, we need to see your data. If you can send us (alex@ablebits.com) your sample workbook and the desired result,we will try to help.

  20. This helped me a lot.. thanks..

    just one more thing on "How to count by color and sum cells colored using conditional formatting" - is there a way this can only count the filtered values? (i.e.. just count the QTY only for the PAST DUE on the Delivery column)

    1. here's an example.. when i filter "1" it still counts the hidden cells... i just want it to only count "red" in number "1"

      A B C D Number
      red green orange 1
      orange red green 2
      orange red green 3
      red green orange 1
      orange red green 2
      red green orange 3

  21. Thanks for the Article -
    The spreadsheet I have contains both manual and conditional formatting in the same column,to provide same color - Red background color in this case - now the code that is written addresses either one of the two cases - ie either you can do a manual count or count by conditional formatting; is there a code that combines both cases in one so it can work in my situation.
    Also, do you know if there is a way to subtotal that can provide accurate count if the spreadsheet is filtered based on a certain criteria;

    Thanks for checking.
    -Samir

    1. Hello Samir,

      The Conditional Formatting code also counts and sums cells colored manually. As for subtotal, sorry we do have any idea.

      1. Hi Svetlana, I found your article very helpful. I am also looking for a way to subtotal the count of cells by color for sheets that require filtering. Is there any update on this? Thanks in advance!

  22. My chart did not post as set up.

    Company/Group #/Eff Date/Term Date/Jan/Feb/March/April (each is a column)

  23. The result I get adds the totals of all the cells in the row that are being conditionally formatted. I have 3 different conditional formats, I understood that the count of sum function would only act on those that met the format of the cell I wanted summed or counted. What am I doing incorrectly or does the formula not act on the specific formatting of the cells in question? I can send the file to you if you'd like to view it. Thank you.

    1. Hi Jerry,
      The =CountCellsByColor() and =SumCellsByColor functions count only cells of a specified color. For example, =CountCellsByColor(F2:F14,A17) will color the cells in the range F2:F14 that are of the same color as cell A17. If it does not work in this way for you, please do send us your workbook at support@ablebits.com.

  24. Hi! I'm trying to count by color and i've added the code in the worksheet and saved it as a excel macro-enabled workbook. But when i try to enter the formula i get the messege:"The formula you typed contains an error" I'm using Excel 2010, any idea what i'm doing wrong?

    1. Hi Anders,

      Please let me know which formula are you using. Could you copy/paste it here, exactly as you are entering it in your spreadsheet, with all cell references?

  25. The straight count by colour worked perfectly thanks, once I'd read one of the queries and copied to a Word document first. Saves me all the pain I've had of having an extra column with a letter to match the colour and then sorting and counting from that. Cheers!

  26. Hey i love the code that counts the selected cells while using a conditional formatting. I just wanted to know is there a function that does the same thing. i have a file that constantly updates depending on the drop down selection. i want a function that counts the number of highlighted cells when the conditional format highlights them. Some type of count function that works with conditional formatting and updates based off of the drop down that i select. if you understand what i am saying.

    Thanks again for the help.

    1. Hey Joe!

      Currently we know only one way to do this - using a macro. Other ways are not possible because of Excel's limitations. But we are working on this...

  27. I'm running into an issue where both the =CountCellsByFontColor(F3:F12,F3)and the =CountCellsByFontColor(G3:G12,G3)formulas return ALL of the cells with conditional formatting (standard red/yellow/green)rather than the ones matching the reference cell.

    Any idea why this could be happening. Also, I may have missed where someone else pointed this out, but your code above does not copy/paste cleanly into VB, as the line breaks aren't recognized. Takes a bit of manual tweaking. Not sure if this is a limitation of your site or something that can be fixed.

    Great solution to a common problem (if I can get it to work anyway), by the way.

    1. Hello Dave,

      The CountCellsByFontColor function does not work with conditional formatting, it is purposed only for the cells colored manually. Please use this VBA code instead.

      As for the code formatting problem, most likely it is caused by a particular internet browser. Can you please specify which exactly browser you are using so that we can test on our side? And thanks a lot for your feedback!

  28. Hi,

    I am sure this is a questions for a different topic but hoping you can help? I have a list of 20 individuals and I want to create a 4 quadrant pie chart and place them in the region their scores qualify them to be in the pie. Can this be done?

    Thanks,
    Tatiana

    1. Hi Tatiana,

      You can do this via a pivot chart or CountIfs function. This sample workbook demonstrates both solutions. Hopefully, this is what you are looking for.

      1. How can i plot the Name within the chart?

        1. Sorry, I do not know a way. You can ask this question on excelforum.com or mrexcel.com forums.

  29. maybe I cannot accomplish what I want -

    1. I have a column of numbers (cell A5 - A434) some of those cells w/in that range are colored yellow.

    2. on line A435 - I want to sum ONLY the yellow cells.

    Is your tutorial "How to count by color and sum by color in an Excel worksheet"
    the correct one to utilize?
    if so, I am having trouble with your code (when I copy/paste) - it copies red and utilizes 2 lines.

    I have copied/pasted other codes and they appear to paste as is.

    Thank you for your guidance
    Angel

    1. Is it possible to SUM the amounts in a colored cell? Not how many of a particular color but for example - I have 7 yellow cells - each has different amounts in there... I want an end result.

      I was able to finally get my other problem resolved so I thank you dearly!

      1. Hi Angel,

        Please use the SumCellsByColor function instead. It does exactly what you need - sums the values of colored cells.

    2. Hi Angel,

      Yes, this script can help you to achieve the desired result. Try copying the code to Notepad first and then copy/paste from Notepad to Excel.
      Alternatively, you can copy it directly form the blog in some other browser.

      If this does not work anyway, please send your sample workbook at alexander.frolov@ablebits.com and we will figure this out.

      1. Hi Svetlana,
        I got it to work. Thank you. I figured out that you did not need to run the code, just save it and then continue on with the formula.
        Thanks

  30. Hi Svetlana,

    I am using this this functions and its great "How to count by color and sum cells colored using conditional formatting", but i need to go an extra step and actually publish the count in a designated cell. How can i do this?

    Thanks,
    Tatiana

    1. Hi Tatiana,

      This is not possible with the current script. But we are going to release the Excel add-in soon that will have this feature. Please stay tuned for the update.

  31. Hi Svetlana,
    Thanks for the above code but i guess if we have some unique data in cell along with the color code then there is no need of VBA coding as we can apply simple countif or sumif functions to count/sum the data.

    1. Hi Puran,

      You are absolutely right. This code is purposed for the cases when there is no obvious data / color code relation.

  32. hello,

    thanks for the help. i am trying to use the count by conditional formatting. it is working when a cell's background is colored, but does not work when formatting is for border color.
    also, instead of the count popping up in a box, i would like to have it in another cell.
    could you please help me?

    thanks,
    shachi

    1. Hello Shachi,

      All of the functions count cells by the background color only, the border color is not considered. We are not sure that counting by the border color is feasible, this requires additional research.
      As for the pop-up, it is displayed in case you color cells using conditional formatting. Otherwise, you can use the CountCellsByColor function that outputs the result directly in a cell.

  33. I am trying to do a bit of a hybrid so I can use an if function. My goal is to make it so if a user manually colors a cell red I can then run an if statement on it, when they remove the red it would no longer be true and can run a different formula. I have added and additional column that I will hide when done, I would like to have a way to use the background color in a single cell in a column give me the color index or some sort of color in column b that I could then run a test against. so if reds color index is 4 and cell A1 is red, then I would like 4 or something simular to show in column b. I am sure this is really simple but over my head. I tried adding the first part of the getcellcolor function but it returns the same color for the cell regardless of what color the background is. I would like to be able to do the same thing with font colors.

    I am using excel 2010 and 2013

    Thanks

    1. OK, so I just figured out my problem and it was me, I have it working now. Is there any way to run a macro that will automatically do the f2 part? I am trying to hide the column that has my color index in it so users can't mess it up but now they can't hit f2 and calculate it.

      Thanks, brilliant script

      1. Hi Brad,

        With the current (updated) version of the code, your users can press F2 on any cell, not necessarily the one with the formula.
        Moreover, you can do without F2, by using a solution I posted in response to comment 44 above. Hopefully, this will be helpful for you too.

  34. Hi,
    Svetlana, you are a genius in excel. I like your vb code.
    Thank you.

    1. Thank you very much Sofi!
      But all accolades should really go to our Excel guru Alex : ) As I mentioned in the article he wrote the code for this example.

  35. Hello,

    Thank you for sharing the instructions and code. I'm experiencing some issues with the implementation. When trying to open and run the macro using function Alt F8, the macro does not appear. When I search for the Macro Enabled Workbook file (.xlsm) that I've saved, I see that there is an exclamation mark on the file icon. When attempting to open the .xlsm file, I receive the following error: "Compile Error: Invalid outside of procedure" Could you please help me to figure out what I'm doing wrong? Thank you!

    1. Hi Sarah,

      Please verify whether you copied the entire code from the web-site (from our experience, occasionally the first or last line is missing). If it is not the case, try to add the code anew to some other worksheet. If the error persists, please specify what Excel version you are using.

  36. This worked great! However, I want to do something a bit different and cannot find a solution. I just want to count any colored cell in a row. My rows are dates. The columns represent projects. The colored cells represent different tasks for these projects and the dates they are to be done. These tasks are color coded. I want to limit the concurrent tasks so I want to count number of color-coded tasks. I don't care how many yellow, how many blue, etc. I just want to know how many colored. For example, if there are three yellow, two blue and three orange, I want to see the number 8. Any ideas?

    Thanks,

    1. Hello Tim,

      You can achieve the desired result by counting the non-colored cells (white is also a color : ) and then subtracting this number from cells total. So, add the code to your workbook as described in the article and copy the following formula in the last column of each row, starting from row 2:
      =COLUMN()-1-CountCellsByColor(A2:Q2,R2)

      R2 - the cell with the formula, it should always be non-colored.

      A2:Q2 – color-coded columns that you want to count. If your color coded cells start from any column other than A, than replace -1 in the formula with the corresponding column number. E.g. if your color codes start with column B, the formula will be =COLUMN()-2-CountCellsByColor(B2:Q2,R2)

      1. You're the greatest, thanks!

  37. Hi Paul,

    Thank you very much for letting us know!

  38. Hi Wanda,

    Sorry, I am not sure I can exactly follow you. If you can send us (at support@ablebits.com) your original workseet and the result you are trying to achive, we will try to help.

  39. Thanks to you I am able to correctly count cells of a particular colour now in a column, but I really need to be able to count only the rows where both a colour is in a certain column and another has the words "Indoor" in it (i.e. 2 conditions to be met to count the row).
    I tried the formula: =COUNTIFS(Report.xls!$I:$I,$B$9, Report.xls!$AH:$AH,"(CellsByColor(Report.xls!$AH:$AH,A3))") which appears to work but always results in the answer zero. Can you see where I am going wrong please or suggest a better way?

    1. Hi Greg,

      There is no Excel formula that would let you count rows based on two different conditions at a time. This can be done by creating an additional column in your Report.xls sheet. If such an approach is acceptable for you, please let me know and we will try to work out a formula.

  40. Hi, by chance i get this article while surfing. excellent piece of information. How to count cells colour to denote a separate colour. For example, if there are five yellow,five red and 10 oranges in a row, say from a1 to a20. in A21, i want to stipulate a condition, where, there should be 5yellow (not less or more), similarly 5 red and 10 oranges, if these are satisfied, then I want a21 to be green colour otherwise, blank. How to effect it in a selected row and then i can copy the formula.May i expect your reply as solution.

    1. Hi Jraju,

      You can add this function to your workbook and then enter the following formula to A21:
      =AND(CountCellsByColor($A$1:$A$20,$B$1)=5, CountCellsByColor($A$1:$A$20,$B$2)=10, CountCellsByColor($A$1:$A$20,$B$3)=5)=TRUE

      Where $B$1, $B$2 and $B$3 are the cells with your color patterns (yellow, red and orange, respectively).

      If the cells with color patterns are on another sheet, then you need to add the sheet's name, e.g.
      =AND(CountCellsByColor($A$1:$A$20,ColorLookup!$A$1)=5, CountCellsByColor($A$1:$A$20,ColorLookup!$A$2)=10, CountCellsByColor($A$1:$A$20,ColorLookup!$A$3)=5)=TRUE

  41. Hello Jake,

    Regrettably, none of our Excel developers knows how to do this. The Excel Object model does not allow using the needed property in formulas, which is why it's impossible to create a conditional formatting rule to count the colored cells. Calling a macro manually as described in the article is the only possible way that we know.

  42. Thank you for adding the code in response to Connor's comment about the entire workbook. I am trying to get the sum, not the count for the workbook. I just want to make sure that code works for the sum as well as the count, and if so, what data range would I use? Thank you.

    1. Hi Josh,

      It's a very good question! It actually made me realize that the formulas we published in that section were not true.

      When using the function that counts and sums colored cells across all the sheets in a workbook, you need to use the following formulas to count and sum, respectively:
      =WbkCountCellsByColor(A1) and =WbkSumCellsByColor(A1)

      We've slightly modified the code and does work for the sum as well as for the count now. Just enter the second formula in any empty cell on any sheet without defining a range, specify the address of any cell of the needed color (it's (A1) in the example above) and the formula will display the sum of all the cells shaded in this color in your workbook.

      Thanks again for your comment and your great question!

  43. Hi,

    Thanks for the code. It's very useful. I am looking for code that counts coloured cells and then recounts when a filter is applied to those cells. i.e. it counts all the coloured cells in the filtered data. Any help with this would be much appreciated.

    Matt

      1. Thanks for the response.

        Coloured manually - The data was originally conditionally formatted however I copied and pasted it to remove the conditional formatting so the data is effectively coloured manually.

        I am using Excels autofilter.

        Matt

        1. Matt,

          Try to find the following line in the code:
          If indRefColor = cellCurrent.Interior.ColorIndex Then

          And replace it with:
          If (indRefColor = cellCurrent.Interior.ColorIndex) AND (False = cellCurrent.Rows.Hidden) Then

          This line is used both in "Function CountCellsByColor" and "Function SumCellsByColor". You can change it in both functions if you want to count and sum the filtered cells, or in the CountCellsByColor function only.

          Does it work now as you want it?

          1. Thanks. I changed it and now it works perfectly.

            Find the following line
            If indRefColor = cellCurrent.Interior.Color Then

            And replace it with:
            If (indRefColor = cellCurrent.Interior.Color) AND (False = cellCurrent.Rows.Hidden) Then

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