Finding All Comments and Notes in an Excel Workbook
How to locate, display, and manage comments and notes scattered throughout your spreadsheets.
Comments contain important context — explanations, reminders, review feedback. But they're invisible until you hover over a cell with that tiny red triangle.
When you need to find all comments in a workbook, or review what notes exist, Excel makes it harder than necessary.
Comments vs. Notes (Microsoft 365)
In Microsoft 365, Excel split the old “Comments” feature into two:
- Comments: Threaded conversations with @mentions, timestamps, and reply chains. These are collaborative and tied to specific people.
- Notes: The classic single-block annotation that existed in older Excel versions. Simple text, no threading.
In Excel 2019 and earlier, there's only “Comments” — these behave like what 365 calls Notes.
This distinction matters because the tools for finding and managing them are different.
Finding Comments and Notes on a Sheet
Visual indicators: Cells with comments show a small red triangle in the corner. Cells with notes show a different indicator (red triangle) in older versions or a purple indicator for threaded comments in 365.
Go To Special: Ctrl+G → Special → Comments. This selects all cells with comments/notes on the current sheet. You can then cycle through them.
Review tab: Previous/Next buttons let you navigate through comments/notes one by one. “Show All Comments” or “Show All Notes” displays them all at once.
Displaying All Comments
Review tab → Show All Comments (or Show Notes in 365). This opens all comment boxes on the sheet so you can see them without hovering.
Toggle it off to hide them again. This is useful for review but makes the sheet cluttered for regular work.
Printing comments: Page Layout tab → Page Setup dialog → Sheet tab. Under “Comments,” choose “At end of sheet” or “As displayed on sheet.”
Managing Comments Across a Workbook
Delete all comments on a sheet: Select all cells (Ctrl+A), then Review tab → Delete (under Comments/Notes section).
Finding comments across all sheets: There's no built-in feature. You'd need to check each sheet with Go To Special or use VBA to iterate through all worksheets.
Converting Notes to Comments (365): If you have old-style notes and want threaded comments, there's no bulk conversion. You'd need to manually recreate them.
Best Practices for Comments
Be specific: “Check this” is useless six months later. “Verify Q3 numbers match the finance report dated 10/15” gives context.
Date your notes: Add the date when leaving non-threaded notes. You'll know if the note is still relevant.
Clean up when done: Temporary review comments should be deleted once resolved. Don't let them accumulate and create confusion.
Find Everything in Your Workbook with Object Explorer
Named ranges, charts, comments, hidden sheets — Object Explorer shows you everything in your workbook at a glance.
Related Reading
- Advanced Comments Guide — manage comments efficiently
- Workbook Audit — review workbooks systematically
- Shapes & Images — manage visual objects
Official Resources
- Comments and notes — Microsoft comments guide
- Show/hide comments — displaying comments
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