Find Any File containing a UK National Insurance Number

[Chris Waller]

Morning All,

I am after a small favour. Is it possible to create a procedure using Excel 2010 that would search through our folders\directories and list any file that contains data in the format of a National Insurance Number i.e. AANNNNNNA the first 2 digits are alpha characters followed by 6 numbers 0-9 followed by another alpha character. We have been advised to delete any that we find, but the problem is trying to find them in the first instance. TIA

 

[GJSBED]

To check every cell of spreadsheet (17,179,869,184 of them since Excel 2007 came out, and that's just one worksheet) to do what you want it will need to look at every cell, to establish if their is data to check in that cell.

This Would assuming the macro is efficient enough to check each cell in One Second, take somewhere close to 544 Days per worksheet

Excel is probably not the weapon of choice here!

Manual Labour may well be more efficient, the human eye can spot an empty space and disregard it much quicker

 

[Chris Waller]

GJSBED

Thanks for the info. I may have to rethink what I am trying to do.