Excel TEXTAFTER Function

TEXTAFTER returns the text that appears after a specified delimiter. It is the companion to TEXTBEFORE and replaces the old MID + FIND approach for splitting text.

Syntax

TEXTAFTER(text, delimiter, [instance_num], [match_mode], [match_end], [if_not_found])

Argument	What it means
text required	The text string to extract from.
delimiter required	The character or string to search for.
instance_num optional	Which occurrence to use. Default is 1 (first). Use -1 for the last occurrence.
match_mode optional	0 = case-sensitive (default), 1 = case-insensitive.
if_not_found optional	What to return if delimiter isn't found. Defaults to #N/A.

Examples

Extract last name from full name

=TEXTAFTER(A2, " ")

If A2 contains "Sarah Johnson", this returns "Johnson".

Extract domain from email address

=TEXTAFTER(A2, "@")

If A2 contains "sarah@example.com", this returns "example.com".

Extract file extension

=TEXTAFTER(A2, ".", -1)

Using -1 finds the last dot, so "report.Q2.2026.xlsx" correctly returns "xlsx", not "Q2".

Combine TEXTBEFORE and TEXTAFTER to extract the middle

Extract the city from "12 Oak Street, Birmingham, UK":

=TEXTBEFORE(TEXTAFTER(A2, ", "), ", ")

TEXTAFTER strips everything up to and including the first comma-space, then TEXTBEFORE strips everything from the second comma-space onward.

What if the delimiter appears multiple times?

By default, TEXTAFTER matches the first occurrence. Set instance_num to 2 for the second, 3 for the third, or -1 for the last.

What version of Excel supports TEXTAFTER?

Excel 365 and Excel for the web only. Not available in Excel 2021, 2019, or earlier.

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