Complete Regex Guide for Advanced Search and Replace in Google Docs™

Google Docs (and Advanced Search and Replace) uses the powerful RE2 regex engine. Just tick “Use regex” in the sidebar and you’re ready to go!

Pattern	Meaning	Example / Common Use
.	Any character except newline	a.c → abc, a2c, a c
\d	Digit 0–9	\d{4} → 2025
\w	Letter, digit or underscore	\w+ → word123
\s	Whitespace (space, tab, newline)	\s{2,} → multiple spaces
^	Start of paragraph/line	^Hello → only at beginning
$	End of paragraph/line	end$ → only at end
\b	Word boundary	\bcat\b → cat but not catch
|	OR	cat|dog
*	0 or more	a* → aaaa or nothing
+	1 or more	\d+ → 1, 12, 12345
?	0 or 1 (also makes previous lazy)	colou?r → color & colour
{3}	Exactly 3	\d{3} → 123
{3,}	3 or more	\s{3,} → 3+ spaces
{2,5}	Between 2 and 5	\w{2,5} → 2–5 letter words
(abc)	Capturing group – remember matched text	Use $1, $2 in Replace
$1, $2, …	Insert captured group in replacement	Find (\w+) (\w+) → Replace $2 $1 (swap names)
[abc]	Any one of a, b, or c	[aeiou] → any vowel
[^abc]	Anything EXCEPT a, b, c	[^0-9] → non-digits
[a-z]	Any lowercase letter
[0-9]	Any digit (same as \d)
\n	Paragraph break / newline	Remove extra lines: \n{3,}
\t	Tab
\f	Page break / form feed	Remove all page breaks: leave Replace empty
\., \*, \?, etc.	Literal dot, asterisk, question mark…

Most Useful Ready-to-Use Patterns

Goal	Find (Regex)	Replace With
Reduce multiple spaces to one	\s{2,}	(single space)
Remove triple+ blank lines	\n{3,}	\n\n
Find all email addresses	[A-Za-z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Za-z0-9.-]+\.[A-Za-z]{2,}	$0 (or link them with format-based replace)
Find URLs (http/https)	https?://[^\s]+	$0
Standardize US phone numbers	\b(\d{3})[.\- ]?(\d{3})[.\- ]?(\d{4})\b	($1) $2-$3
Swap first and last name	(\w+) (\w+)	$2 $1
Remove all page breaks	\f	(leave empty)
Find words longer than 15 letters	\b\w{16,}\b	(highlight or correct)