How can I find last row that contains data in a specific column?

Question

How can I find the last row that contains data in a specific column and on a specific sheet?

Answer 1

All the solutions relying on built-in behaviors (like .Find and .End) have limitations that are not well-documented (see my other answer for details).

I needed something that:

• Finds the last non-empty cell (i.e. that has any formula or value, even if it's an empty string) in a specific column
• Relies on primitives with well-defined behavior
• Works reliably with autofilters and user modifications
• Runs as fast as possible on 10,000 rows (to be run in a Worksheet_Change handler without feeling sluggish)
• ...with performance not falling off a cliff with accidental data or formatting put at the very end of the sheet (at ~1M rows)

The solution below:

• Uses UsedRange to find the upper bound for the row number (to make the search for the true "last row" fast in the common case where it's close to the end of the used range);
• Goes backwards to find the row with data in the given column;
• ...using VBA arrays to avoid accessing each row individually (in case there are many rows in the UsedRange we need to skip)

(No tests, sorry)

' Returns the 1-based row number of the last row having a non-empty value in the given column (0 if the whole column is empty)
Private Function getLastNonblankRowInColumn(ws As Worksheet, colNo As Integer) As Long
    ' Force Excel to recalculate the "last cell" (the one you land on after CTRL+END) / "used range"
    ' and get the index of the row containing the "last cell". This is reasonably fast (~1 ms/10000 rows of a used range)
    Dim lastRow As Long: lastRow = ws.UsedRange.Rows(ws.UsedRange.Rows.Count).Row - 1 ' 0-based

    ' Since the "last cell" is not necessarily the one we're looking for (it may be in a different column, have some
    ' formatting applied but no value, etc), we loop backward from the last row towards the top of the sheet).
    Dim wholeRng As Range: Set wholeRng = ws.Columns(colNo)

    ' Since accessing cells one by one is slower than reading a block of cells into a VBA array and looping through the array,
    ' we process in chunks of increasing size, starting with 1 cell and doubling the size on each iteration, until MAX_CHUNK_SIZE is reached.
    ' In pathological cases where Excel thinks all the ~1M rows are in the used range, this will take around 100ms.
    ' Yet in a normal case where one of the few last rows contains the cell we're looking for, we don't read too many cells.
    Const MAX_CHUNK_SIZE = 2 ^ 10 ' (using large chunks gives no performance advantage, but uses more memory)
    Dim chunkSize As Long: chunkSize = 1
    Dim startOffset As Long: startOffset = lastRow + 1 ' 0-based
    Do ' Loop invariant: startOffset>=0 and all rows after startOffset are blank (i.e. wholeRng.Rows(i+1) for i>=startOffset)
        startOffset = IIf(startOffset - chunkSize >= 0, startOffset - chunkSize, 0)
        ' Fill `vals(1 To chunkSize, 1 To 1)` with column's rows indexed `[startOffset+1 .. startOffset+chunkSize]` (1-based, inclusive)
        Dim chunkRng As Range: Set chunkRng = wholeRng.Resize(chunkSize).Offset(startOffset)
        Dim vals() As Variant
        If chunkSize > 1 Then
            vals = chunkRng.Value2
        Else ' reading a 1-cell range requires special handling 
            ReDim vals(1 To 1, 1 To 1)
            vals(1, 1) = chunkRng.Value2
        End If

        Dim i As Long
        For i = UBound(vals, 1) To LBound(vals, 1) Step -1
            If Not IsEmpty(vals(i, 1)) Then
                getLastNonblankRowInColumn = startOffset + i
                Exit Function
            End If
        Next i

        If chunkSize < MAX_CHUNK_SIZE Then chunkSize = chunkSize * 2
    Loop While startOffset > 0

    getLastNonblankRowInColumn = 0
End Function