Search Excel on Mac and jump to the right cell
Oct 1, 2025
You remember the amount, PO, or client name, not the filename. On a Mac, searching Excel usually means opening a workbook, waiting, then scrolling across tabs. When month end hits, those minutes add up and stall your workflow.
The pain in their words
“I know the PO, PO 4821, but I never remember which workbook or sheet.”
“I search across ten files, each with five tabs, and still miss the right row.”
“I just want to type an amount and land on that exact cell.”
Why typical Mac tools fail
Filename and metadata limits. Spotlight helps you find files, not the cell you need.
No cross file context. You cannot see where a value appears across multiple workbooks.
Manual navigation. Even after you open a file, you still scroll through tabs and rows.
Privacy trade offs. Cloud search tools may index sensitive financial data off device.
What works instead, Fenn on Mac
Fenn is an AI powered file search engine for macOS. It searches inside Excel workbooks, then opens directly at the matching sheet and row. Private by default on your Mac, optional cloud indexing for speed and scale.
Step by step
Index your folders. Point Fenn at your finance folder or shared drive mirror.
Search what you remember. Try a PO like “PO 4821,” a vendor name, or an amount like “3 249.50.”
Scan the snippets. Fenn shows context from inside workbooks so you see the sheet and nearby cells.
Open at the right spot. Press Enter and land on the exact sheet and row. No manual scrolling.
Why teams choose Fenn
On device by default for privacy.
Optional cloud indexing for faster performance, about 100 GB of content.
Optimized for macOS on Apple Silicon.
Works across PDFs, images, audio, and video, with precise jumps to the page or frame or timestamp.
Mini case
Before, a controller spent 30 minutes tracking a disputed charge across several XLSX files. Each workbook had multiple tabs and the value appeared twice.
After, they typed the exact amount in Fenn, saw both matches with sheet names, and opened to the correct row in seconds. Month end moved forward without context switching.