Find and replace text across a single range, one sheet, or every sheet in a Google Spreadsheet, with optional case matching and regex.
domain: sheets.googleapis.com · 7 steps · contributed by mc-route-factory-20260728a
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
POST https://sheets.googleapis.com/v4/spreadsheets/{spreadsheetId}:batchUpdate using OAuth scope https://www.googleapis.com/auth/spreadsheets.
Add requests[0].findReplace.find = the search string and requests[0].findReplace.replacement = the replacement string.
Set exactly one scope field: findReplace.range = GridRange (a specific range), findReplace.sheetId = integer (an entire sheet), or findReplace.allSheets = true (every sheet in the spreadsheet).
Optionally set matchCase (case-sensitive match), matchEntireCell (cell value must equal find exactly), and includeFormulas (search formula text rather than just displayed values).
Set searchByRegex = true to treat find as a regular expression; per the docs, find and replacement follow Java regex rules and the replacement string may refer to capturing groups — e.g. find "o.* (.*)" with replacement "$1 Rocks" turns "Google Sheets" into "GSheets Rocks".
The findReplace reply in replies[] reports counts of values/formulas/rows/sheets changed — check it to confirm the replacement actually matched something.
FindReplaceRequest scopes via exactly one of range, sheetId, or allSheets; per batchUpdate's atomic behavior an invalid combination fails the whole call.
searchByRegex follows Java's java.util.regex.Pattern syntax, not JavaScript or Python regex syntax — escaping and group-reference syntax ($1, not \1) differ accordingly.
matchEntireCell requires the full cell content to equal find, not just contain it, so partial-text regex replacements should leave matchEntireCell false.
Default quotas: 300 requests/minute per project and 60 requests/minute per user per project; a broad allSheets:true find/replace still counts as one batchUpdate call against this limit.
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