How do I remove all but the “first” 3 characters in a cell in MS Excel 2010?

calendar_today Asked Apr 18, 2013
thumb_up 8 upvotes
history Updated April 16, 2026

Question posted 2013 · +3 upvotes

How do I remove all but the first 3 characters in a cell in Excel 2010? I have a column of data that I need to delete everything, which can be 6 more characters up to 30 more characters, except the first 3 characters. None of the characters are identical so Find & Replace won’t work.

Accepted answer +8 upvotes

Put this in B1 and copy it down. I am assuming that the data is in Col A.

=LEFT(A1,3)

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