Excel MID and RIGHT Text Extraction
By Szabó Gergő · Updated
MID takes a slice from the middle. RIGHT takes a slice from the end. Pair them with FIND when the position changes.
Syntax and arguments
=MID(text, start_num, num_chars)- text
- The source cell.
- start_num
- First character to keep, 1-based, for MID.
- num_chars
- How many characters to return.
MID / RIGHT examples
01
Fixed middle
A2 is AB-12345-XY.
=MID(A2,4,5)Starts at character 4 and keeps 12345.
02
Last four
A phone-like ID.
=RIGHT(A2,4)Always the last four characters.
03
After a hyphen
Prefix length varies.
=MID(A2,FIND("-",A2)+1,10)FIND supplies the start so the prefix can change length.
Common mistakes
start_num of 0
MID starts at 1. 0 returns #VALUE!.
FIND when the mark is missing
Wrap in IFERROR or IF(ISNUMBER(FIND(...))).
Using RIGHT for a middle token
RIGHT cannot skip a suffix. Use MID or TEXTBEFORE.
MID / RIGHT FAQ
What about LEFT?
LEFT reads from the start. Use it for prefixes.
Does MID work on numbers?
Excel converts the number to text first. Format can affect the result.
Microsoft 365 alternative?
TEXTAFTER and TEXTBEFORE are easier when you have delimiters.