In column A I have 20000 rows with filename with file path
"C:\person\microsoft\ygkyg\mmddyy\filename.xls"
"\server-41\performance\mmddyy\filename.doc"
.....
etc.
In column B I just want to get the parent folder path.
Could someone help me with the formula? I tried this but it's giving me the file name.
=MID(a1,FIND(CHAR(1),
SUBSTITUTE(a1,"\",CHAR(1),LEN(a1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(a1,"\",""))))+1,LEN(a1))
This works.
=MID(A1,1,LEN(A1)-LEN(MID(A1,FIND(CHAR(1),SUBSTITUTE(A1,"\",CHAR(1),LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1,"\",""))))+1,LEN(A1))))
The above was my original answer. Neil simplified the expression somewhat and posted this as a comment below:
=LEFT(A1,FIND("?",SUBSTITUTE(A1,"\","?",LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1,"\","")))))
This takes advantage of the fact that ? is a forbidden character in paths so that "?" can safely be used instead of CHAR(1) as a placemark, thus improving readability a little bit. Also, LEFT(A1,x) is equivalent to, and shorter than MID(A1,1,x), so it makes sense to use LEFT. But most importantly, this formula makes use of FIND, instead of a second layer of counting characters using LEN. This makes it much more readable.
来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5504797/get-parent-folder-path-from-file-path-using-cell-formula