How to Remove the Last Character in Excel (or the last few)

“Delhi,” with a comma you don’t want. “250kg” where you only need 250.

The formula

=LEFT(A2,LEN(A2)-1)

Take everything from the left except one character.

Remove the last N characters

=LEFT(A2,LEN(A2)-2)

“250kg” → “250”. Change 2 to any number.

Only if it is a certain character

Drop a trailing comma but leave other cells unchanged:

=IF(RIGHT(A2)=",",LEFT(A2,LEN(A2)-1),A2)

Excel 365: everything before the last space

=TEXTBEFORE(A2," ",-1)

Removes the last word — handy for “Mumbai 400001” → “Mumbai”.

Flash Fill

Type the cleaned version next to row 1, press Ctrl+E below it. See Flash Fill.

Numbers you want to calculate with

LEFT returns text. For “250kg” → 250 as a number: =VALUE(LEFT(A2,LEN(A2)-2)).

#VALUE! error

The cell is empty or shorter than the number of characters you’re removing. Guard it: =IF(LEN(A2)>1,LEFT(A2,LEN(A2)-1),"").

The start instead: remove the first character · the whole toolkit: LEFT, RIGHT, MID