Slow lookup formulas can kill productivity when working with large datasets. To cope with that, I’ve tested Excel’s optimal lookup functions and their combinations for building lightning-fast formulas that handle even massive spreadsheets with ease.
4XLOOKUP Is My Go-To Functions
It’s Much Better Than VLOOKUP
I have used VLOOKUP for a long time, but it has limitations with complex data. XLOOKUP, on the other hand, eliminates most of these problems while offering better performance and flexibility.
When using XLOOKUP, you select the lookup and return columns separately, meaning you can finally look to the left of your lookup column without rearranging your data. That’s one of the reasons whyXLOOKUP is better than VLOOKUP.
XLOOKUP has the following syntax:
Let’s break down the parameters:
The optional parameters give you more control:
Let’s use an office-related example. If you have an employee’s email address and need to find their full name, you will have to do so by looking to the left. VLOOKUP can’t do this easily because the “Full Name” column is to the left of the “AD Email” column. But it’s doable with XLOOKUP.
For instance, if you have the email address uriah.bridges@bilearner.com in cellJ2, you can use this formula to find the full name:
Here, the formula searches for the email in column J and returns the corresponding name from columnD. If the email isn’t found, it cleanly returns “Employee Not Found” instead of a jarring #N/A error. This built-in error handling makes it more robust and user-friendly.
3I Combine LET and XLOOKUP
Eliminate Repetitive Calculations
Formulas can sometimes become long and complex, especially when you need to perform the same calculation multiple times within a single formula. This not only makes the formula hard to read but also hurts performance, as Excel has to compute the same result repeatedly.
The solution to this is the LET function, which allows you to declare variables directly inside a formula. You calculate something once, give it a name, and then just use that name whenever you need the result. The syntax is simple:
Let’s say I have a task that requires assigning a status based on an employee’s current rating. If their rating (found using their employee ID) is five, they are “Top Tier.” If it’s one, they are “On Watchlist.” Otherwise, they are “Standard.”
Without LET, I would have to write the XLOOKUP function twice, like the following:
But with using LET, the formula becomes much cleaner. I calculate the XLOOKUP just once and assign it to the name “rating.”
This formula looks up an employee ID from cellA2in columnA, retrieves their numerical rating from columnAC, and then categorizes the performance.
The LET function stores the rating lookup once, preventing Excel from repeating the same XLOOKUP calculation in the nested IF statements. The formula is significantly easier to read and debug.
2INDEX and MATCH Work Great Together
They Create the Fastest Lookup Combinations
Before XLOOKUP existed, INDEX and MATCH were the only options for building fast lookups. Even now, this combination often outperforms newer functions in raw speed. On spreadsheets with tens of thousands of rows, this combination is noticeably faster because it processes only the specific columns you reference, not entire tables.
Neither function performs a complete lookup on its own. TheMATCH functionis good at one thing: finding the relative position (the row number) of a value within a column. Then, the INDEX function takes that number and fetches the corresponding value from another column.
First, let’s look at the MATCH syntax. It tells you where your data is.
Next is the INDEX syntax, which retrieves what you want based on the position MATCH provides.
Let’s say I need to find the pay zone for the employee with ID 3,427. I would use the following formula:
In this example, the MATCH part first finds the row number for the employee ID located in cell A2. The INDEX part then takes that number and returns the value from that exact row in the pay zone column (which is column F). It’s a lightweight and efficient method.
1FILTER Is the Ultimate Lookup Function
It Replaces Multiple Lookups at Once
Standard lookups, even XLOOKUP, have a fundamental limitation—they stop and return the very first match they find. But what if you need a list of all matching records? In Excel versions before 2021, this required complex array formulas. Now, I use the FILTER function instead. It extracts every single record meeting your criteria.
If you’venever used Excel’s FILTER function, you’re seriously missing out. It dynamically returns an array of values that spills into the cells below the formula. This means you no longer need to guess how many results you’ll get. The function handles the output size for you, which is obviously a time-saver.
The following is the syntax of the FILTER function:
Let’s say a manager, Peter O’Neill, wants a list of all his direct reports. I need to pull the full name, start date, and salary for every employee who lists them as their supervisor. With FILTER, I can pull this entire list with just one formula instead of performing multiple individual lookups.
Here’s the formula that gets the job done:
This formula tells Excel to return the data from columns D through F for every row where the value in column I is “Peter O’Neill.”
The results automatically populate the cells below, creating a clean, dynamic table. Because of this dynamic behavior,this Excel trick ends the pain of resizing tablesforever.
These four approaches cover every lookup scenario I encounter. XLOOKUP is the modern replacement for VLOOKUP. I use LET combinations for optimization, INDEX/MATCH for pure speed, and FILTER for multiple results.
