I’m having trouble running queries on cells that contain formulas in Google Sheets. Whenever I attempt to do this, I keep getting parse errors. Can someone help me understand if it’s actually possible to query formula-based cells directly? Or do I have to convert all the formula results to static values first before I can run any queries on them? I’m working with a spreadsheet where most of my data comes from formulas, so manually converting everything would be really time consuming. Has anyone found a workaround for this issue?
yeah, i had a similar issue once. sometimes it’s just a matter of formulas still working or having different data types in the same col. maybe try a little delay or using IFERROR() to get rid of any blanks/errors messing up your query.
Google Sheets queries work fine with formula-based cells, so your parse errors are coming from something else. I’ve used QUERY on calculated columns for years without problems. QUERY reads the displayed values, not the formulas themselves. Your issue is probably query syntax. Common problems include wrong column references, missing quotes around text, or data type mismatches. Test your query on a simple range first to isolate the syntax problem. Additionally, check if your formula cells show errors like #N/A or #REF, as those will break queries. What specific query are you running?
QUERY works with formula cells, but here’s what trips people up: when your formulas return empty strings or mix data types in the same column, the query engine freaks out. I hit this exact issue with conditional formulas that sometimes returned text, sometimes numbers. Fixed it by forcing consistent data types - wrap stuff in TEXT() or VALUE() to keep everything uniform. Also check for circular references since those mess with parsing. Start small - test your query on just a few rows first to see if it works before running the whole range.