How to find broken links in Excel
Use the Find Broken Links tool to quickly find all broken external references in your Excel sheet. Get all the found links displayed on the add-in pane, review and fix them.
Note. The tool checks references to other Excel sheets and cells only, hyperlinks are not supported.
How to find broken links
Open Excel table where you need to find links and run the add-in by clicking the Find Broken Links icon in the Search group on the Ablebits Tools tab:
You will see all broken links displayed in a tree view on the Find Broken Links pane:
If you want the tool to display not only broken links but all the found ones, clear the Broken links only checkbox and click the Refresh button. The broken links will be marked by a light red background:
Also, you can select the type of links to be shown by opening the drop-down list:
How to fix external references
To fix a link, right-click it on the add-in pane and select the needed action:
- You can click Change Path and set the right source directory:
- To browse for the folder with the correct linked file, pick Change Workbook or Change Sheet:
How to open source files
To open the linked file, right-click the reference on the add-in panel and select the Open Source option:
Responses
Lydeth says:
February 16, 2023 at 8:13 am
Why isn't there an option to remove ALL the links or at least the BROKEN links?
Lydeth
Hello Lydeth,
Thank you for your question.
Please specify if you'd like to have an opportunity to clear the list with the found links on the add-in pane or you want to remove the links from the worksheet with your data. I'll forward your request to our developers for consideration.
In the meantime, I recommend having a look at the following articles on our blog:
How remove multiple hyperlinks from Excel worksheets
How to find and remove external links in Excel
Hope this information will be helpful.
Inge says:
June 17, 2019 at 2:38 pm
I just got this installed. I am working on spreadsheet that is nothing but hyperlinks that lead to a pdf file. When I try to look for broken links, it states, "There are no references to Other files in this worksheet." Any help is appreciated.
Hello Inge,
Thank you for contacting us.
Our Find Broken Links checks the links to other Excel sheets and cells only, hyperlinks are not supported in the current version of the add-in.
Alexander says:
May 21, 2018 at 5:59 pm
Thank you!
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