How to search across all your spreadsheets

Spreadsheets pile up quietly. There’s the budget workbook from last year, a supplier price list someone emailed in March, three CSV exports from the CRM, and a planning sheet with a tab called Sheet1 (2). When someone asks what you paid per unit for packaging in 2024, the answer is in one of them, and opening each in turn takes most of the afternoon.

This guide covers how to search across all your spreadsheets with Fabric: bringing Excel, CSV and Google Sheets files together, finding the right file by name, topic or exact term, and asking the AI assistant to read the contents and pull out the figure you need.

How people usually search their spreadsheets

Excel’s Find and Replace (Cmd+F or Ctrl+F) can search a whole workbook when you set Within to Workbook, and it’s quick and exact. It searches the file that’s open, though, so a question that spans twenty workbooks means opening twenty workbooks.

Spotlight and Windows Search look inside many file types on your own computer, which helps for files saved locally. Google Drive search finds Google Sheets by their contents and suits teams who keep everything in Drive. CSV exports and Excel files sent as attachments often sit outside both, in an inbox or a downloads folder.

A more ambitious fix is a master workbook that pulls data from the others with lookups or Power Query. It works well for a fixed set of files with stable columns. When a supplier changes the layout of their price list, or a new export adds a column, the links need fixing by hand.

Step 1: Bring your spreadsheets together

Fabric accepts CSV and XLSX files. Drag them into the web or desktop app, paste them, or click Upload a file; large numbers of files upload at once. If you’d rather keep saving from Excel into a folder, install the desktop app, which mounts Fabric as a drive in Finder or File Explorer.

Google Sheets come in through connections, which need a paid plan. Price lists and exports that arrive by email can be forwarded to your Fabric email address, which saves the attachment straight into your library. It accepts mail from your verified account address, and on a team you can approve extra senders.

Step 2: Find the right file

When a spreadsheet arrives, Fabric creates embeddings from its contents, writes a short summary, and records attributes such as content type and topics. That means search can find a workbook by what it’s about, even when the filename is Export_20240312.csv.

Click Search or press Cmd+F (Mac) / Ctrl+F (Windows) and describe the file: packaging supplier prices 2024, or monthly ad spend by channel. Fabric search matches by meaning and by keyword together. For a specific supplier name, SKU or project code, put it in quotes for strict matching.

Filters help when many files match. Filter by kind of item, by location (a Finance folder, say), or by tag. Fabric suggests tags from each file’s content, and you can accept the useful ones as files come in.

Step 3: Ask the AI assistant to read the numbers

Finding the file is half the job. The other half is the figure inside it, and that’s where the AI assistant helps. It can read CSV and XLSX files, so you can ask it what’s in them instead of scrolling through rows.

Open the folder that holds the spreadsheets and open the assistant. It’s automatically limited to that folder and analyzes everything in it to answer. Ask things like what was the unit price for 500ml bottles in the March price list, or which month had the highest ad spend across these exports. Answers cite the files they came from with clickable references, so you can open the sheet and check the cell yourself.

To ask about spreadsheets in different folders, right-click each folder and add it to the assistant’s context. Follow-up questions keep the same context, which suits a chain like totals by quarter, then by supplier, then only for the last two years.

Step 4: Check figures against the source and keep the answer

Treat the assistant’s answer as a pointer to the right cells, then confirm in the file before the number goes into a report or an email. The citation opens the spreadsheet it used, which makes that check quick.

Useful answers can be saved as notes with one click. Over time a short note such as Packaging costs by year, with citations to each source sheet, saves repeating the same lookup. One subscription covers models from several labs, including Claude, Gemini and OpenAI, so you can try another model if an answer about a messy export doesn’t look right. For ideas on sorting finance files, see how to organize invoices as a freelancer.

Step 5: Search spreadsheets in other apps

Spreadsheets you haven’t moved into Fabric can still be searched if the app they live in is connected. Click inside the knowledge search panel, on the right of the search screen on web and desktop or in the bottom drawer on mobile, and it searches Fabric and your connected apps together. How to search across all your apps at once explains how that works.

If you also want the AI tool you already use to read these files, Fabric’s MCP server lets ChatGPT, Claude and other tools search Fabric and read file contents, including files from connected apps like Google Drive.

Frequently asked questions

How do I search across multiple Excel files at once?

Put the files in Fabric and use search to find the right workbook. To find a value inside them, open the folder and ask the AI assistant, which reads XLSX and CSV files and cites the ones it used.

Can Fabric read the data inside a CSV or XLSX file?

Yes. The AI assistant can read CSV and XLSX files, so you can ask it questions about the rows and figures they contain.

Does it work with Google Sheets?

Yes, through a connection. Connections to other apps need a paid plan.

How do I find a spreadsheet when the filename tells me nothing?

Describe what’s in it. Fabric summarizes each file and searches by meaning, so a query about the contents finds a file called Export_final.csv.

Can I search for an exact product code or supplier name?

Put the code or name in quotes for strict matching. You can also ask the AI assistant to look for it across a folder of spreadsheets.

Should I trust the AI’s numbers?

Use them as a starting point. Each answer links to the files it drew from, so check the figure in the source sheet before relying on it.

Can ChatGPT or Claude search my spreadsheets?

Yes, through Fabric’s MCP server, which lets them search Fabric and read file contents. How to use ChatGPT with your own files covers the setup.

Is this available on the free plan?

Uploading spreadsheets and limited AI use are on the free plan. Connections such as Google Sheets need a paid plan; see pricing.