Get the last non-empty cell in a column in Google Sheets

Question

I use the following function

=DAYS360(A2, A35)

to calculate the difference between two dates in my column. However, the column is ever expanding and I currently have to manually change 'A35' as I update my spreadsheet.

Is there a way (in Google Sheets) to find the last non-empty cell in this column and then dynamically set that parameter in the above function?

Answer 1

There may be a more eloquent way, but this is the way I came up with:

The function to find the last populated cell in a column is:

=INDEX( FILTER( A:A ; NOT( ISBLANK( A:A ) ) ) ; ROWS( FILTER( A:A ; NOT( ISBLANK( A:A ) ) ) ) )

So if you combine it with your current function it would look like this:

=DAYS360(A2,INDEX( FILTER( A:A ; NOT( ISBLANK( A:A ) ) ) ; ROWS( FILTER( A:A ; NOT( ISBLANK( A:A ) ) ) ) ))

Answer 2

To find the last non-empty cell you can use INDEX and MATCH functions like this:

=DAYS360(A2; INDEX(A:A; MATCH(99^99;A:A; 1)))

I think this is a little bit faster and easier.

Answer 3

If A2:A contains dates contiguously then INDEX(A2:A,COUNT(A2:A)) will return the last date. The final formula is

=DAYS360(A2,INDEX(A2:A,COUNT(A2:A)))

Answer 4

My favorite is:

=INDEX(A2:A,COUNTA(A2:A),1)

So, for the OP's need:

=DAYS360(A2,INDEX(A2:A,COUNTA(A2:A),1))

Answer 5

If the column expanded only by contiguously added dates as in my case - I used just MAX function to get last date.

The final formula will be:

=DAYS360(A2; MAX(A2:A)) 

Answer 6

Although the question is already answered, there is an eloquent way to do it.

Use just the column name to denote last non-empty row of that column.

For example:

If your data is in A1:A100 and you want to be able to add some more data to column A, say it can be A1:A105 or even A1:A1234 later, you can use this range:

A1:A

Answer 7

What about this formula for getting the last value:

=index(G:G;max((G:G<>"")*row(G:G)))

And this would be a final formula for your original task:

=DAYS360(G10;index(G:G;max((G:G<>"")*row(G:G))))

Suppose that your initial date is in G10.

Answer 8

Here's another one:

=indirect("A"&max(arrayformula(if(A:A<>"",row(A:A),""))))

With the final equation being this:

=DAYS360(A2,indirect("A"&max(arrayformula(if(A:A<>"",row(A:A),"")))))

The other equations on here work, but I like this one because it makes getting the row number easy, which I find I need to do more often. Just the row number would be like this:

=max(arrayformula(if(A:A<>"",row(A:A),"")))

I originally tried to find just this to solve a spreadsheet issue, but couldn't find anything useful that just gave the row number of the last entry, so hopefully this is helpful for someone.

Also, this has the added advantage that it works for any type of data in any order, and you can have blank rows in between rows with content, and it doesn't count cells with formulas that evaluate to "". It can also handle repeated values. All in all it's very similar to the equation that uses max((G:G<>"")*row(G:G)) on here, but makes pulling out the row number a little easier if that's what you're after.

Alternatively, if you want to put a script on your sheet you can make it easy on yourself if you plan on doing this a lot. Here's that scirpt:

function lastRow(sheet,column) {
  var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
  if (column == null) {
    if (sheet != null) {
       var sheet = ss.getSheetByName(sheet);
    } else {
      var sheet = ss.getActiveSheet();
    }
    return sheet.getLastRow();
  } else {
    var sheet = ss.getSheetByName(sheet);
    var lastRow = sheet.getLastRow();
    var array = sheet.getRange(column + 1 + ':' + column + lastRow).getValues();
    for (i=0;i<array.length;i++) {
      if (array[i] != '') {       
        var final = i + 1;
      }
    }
    if (final != null) {
      return final;
    } else {
      return 0;
    }
  }
}

Here you can just type in the following if you want the last row on the same of the sheet that you're currently editing:

=LASTROW()

or if you want the last row of a particular column from that sheet, or of a particular column from another sheet you can do the following:

=LASTROW("Sheet1","A")

And for the last row of a particular sheet in general:

=LASTROW("Sheet1")

Then to get the actual data you can either use indirect:

=INDIRECT("A"&LASTROW())

or you can modify the above script at the last two return lines (the last two since you would have to put both the sheet and the column to get the actual value from an actual column), and replace the variable with the following:

return sheet.getRange(column + final).getValue();

and

return sheet.getRange(column + lastRow).getValue();

One benefit of this script is that you can choose if you want to include equations that evaluate to "". If no arguments are added equations evaluating to "" will be counted, but if you specify a sheet and column they will now be counted. Also, there's a lot of flexibility if you're willing to use variations of the script.

Probably overkill, but all possible.

Answer 9

I went a different route. Since I know I'll be adding something into a row/column one by one, I find out the last row by first counting the fields that have data. I'll demonstrate this with a column:

=COUNT(A5:A34)

So, let's say that returned 21. A5 is 4 rows down, so I need to get the 21st position from the 4th row down. I can do this using inderect, like so:

=INDIRECT("A"&COUNT(A5:A34)+4)

It's finding the amount of rows with data, and returning me a number I'm using as an index modifier.

Answer 10

Calculate the difference between latest date in column A with the date in cell A2.

=MAX(A2:A)-A2

Answer 11

for a row:

=ARRAYFORMULA(INDIRECT("A"&MAX(IF(A:A<>"", ROW(A:A), ))))

for a column:

=ARRAYFORMULA(INDIRECT(ADDRESS(1, MAX(IF(1:1<>"", COLUMN(1:1), )), 4)))

Answer 12

The way an amateur does it is "=CONCATENATE("A",COUNTUNIQUE(A1:A9999))", where A1 is the first cell in the column, and A9999 is farther down that column than I ever expect to have any entries. This resultant A# can be used with the INDIRECT function as needed.