How do I replace text in a spreadsheet with Google Apps Script?

Solution 1:

from Cameron Roberts answer that works in almost every cases (if all cells are filled with strings only) and just for typing convenience (please accept his answer) here is the same script with a small change in the map function : I added toString() to the return argument.

function testReplaceInSheet(){
    var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet()
    replaceInSheet(sheet,'values','test');
}

function replaceInSheet(sheet, to_replace, replace_with) {
  //get the current data range values as an array
  var values = sheet.getDataRange().getValues();

  //loop over the rows in the array
  for(var row in values){

    //use Array.map to execute a replace call on each of the cells in the row.
    var replaced_values = values[row].map(function(original_value){
      return original_value.toString().replace(to_replace,replace_with);
    });

    //replace the original row values with the replaced values
    values[row] = replaced_values;
  }

  //write the updated values to the sheet
  sheet.getDataRange().setValues(values);
}

Solution 2:

You can achieve this by reading in all values in the sheet (as an Array), Looping over the array, replacing the values, then writing the entire array back to the sheet.

There is a basic example below. You may need to modify this if your sheet contains formulas, or if you want to replace the text more than once in a given cell.

Note that any changes made to sheet between the time you read in and write out the data will be lost, and potentially could break this example.

function testReplaceInSheet(){
    var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet()
    replaceInSheet(sheet,'ga: sessions','Sessions');
}

function replaceInSheet(sheet, to_replace, replace_with) {
  //get the current data range values as an array
  var values = sheet.getDataRange().getValues();

  //loop over the rows in the array
  for(var row in values){

    //use Array.map to execute a replace call on each of the cells in the row.
    var replaced_values = values[row].map(function(original_value){
      return original_value.replace(to_replace,replace_with);
    });

    //replace the original row values with the replaced values
    values[row] = replaced_values;
  }

  //write the updated values to the sheet
  sheet.getDataRange().setValues(values);
}

Documentation:

Array.map: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Array/map

String.replace: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/String/replace

Sheet.getDataRange: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference/spreadsheet/sheet#getDataRange()

range.GetValues: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference/spreadsheet/range#getValues()

Solution 3:

TextFinder was released April of 2019:

function textFinder() {
  const sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();
  const range = sheet.getDataRange();
  // Creates  a text finder for the range.
  const textFinder = range.createTextFinder('findValue');
  const allOccurrences = textFinder.replaceAllWith('replaceValue');
}