Excel LEFT, RIGHT, and MID Text Extraction
By Szabó Gergő · Updated
LEFT, RIGHT, and MID return part of a text string. Combine them with FIND or LEN when the piece you need is not a fixed number of characters.
Syntax and arguments
=MID(text, start_num, num_chars)- text
- The source string or cell.
- start_num
- For MID, the first character position, starting at 1.
- num_chars
- How many characters to return.
LEFT, RIGHT, MID examples
SKU is A2, such as NY-1044.
=LEFT(A2,2)LEFT returns the region code NY.
Account number is B2.
=RIGHT(B2,4)RIGHT is useful for masked IDs and check digits.
A2 is EAST-Q3-2026.
=MID(A2,FIND("-",A2)+1,FIND("-",A2,FIND("-",A2)+1)-FIND("-",A2)-1)FIND locates the hyphens so MID can return Q3 regardless of region length.
Common mistakes
Counting from zero
Excel text positions start at 1.
Including the delimiter
Add or subtract 1 after FIND so the hyphen is not part of the result.
Numbers stored as numbers
Wrap with TEXT or VALUE depending on whether you need digits as text or math.
LEFT, RIGHT, MID FAQ
What if FIND does not find the character?
It returns #VALUE!. Wrap with IFERROR or test with ISNUMBER(FIND(...)).
How do I drop the last n characters?
Use =LEFT(A2,LEN(A2)-n) when the remainder should stay.
Is TEXTSPLIT easier?
In Microsoft 365, TEXTSPLIT can replace many MID/FIND formulas when a delimiter is consistent.