How to Use COUNTIF with Wildcards in Google Sheets


You can use the following formulas in Google Sheets to use wildcard characters with the COUNTIF function:

Formula 1: COUNTIF with One Wildcard

=COUNTIF(A2:A11, "*string*")

This particular formula counts the number of cells in the range A2:A11 that contain “string” anywhere in the cell.

Formula 2: COUNTIF with Multiple Wildcards

=COUNTIFS(A2:A11, "*string1*", B2:B11, "*string2*")

This particular formula counts the number of cells where A2:A11 contains “string1” and where B2:B11 contains “string2.”

The following examples show how to use each formula in practice.

Example 1: COUNTIF with One Wildcard

We can use the following formula to count the number of cells in column A that contain “avs” anywhere in the cell:

=COUNTIF(A2:A11, "*avs*")

The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:

From the output we can see that there are 5 cells in column A that contain “avs” in the name.

Example 2: COUNTIF with Multiple Wildcards

We can use the following formula to count the number of rows where A2:A11 contains “avs” and where B2:B11 contains “Gua”:

=COUNTIFS(A2:A11, "*avs*", B2:B11, "*Gua*")

The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:

From the output we can see that there are 2 rows where the team contains “avs” and the position contains “Gua” somewhere in the cell.

Additional Resources

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in Google Sheets:

How to Use COUNTIF with OR in Google Sheets
How to Use COUNTIF From Another Sheet in Google Sheets
How to Use COUNTIFS with a Date Range in Google Sheets

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