Back in July 2012 I wrote this post http://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/21147/query-to-find-and-replace-text-in-all-tables-and-fields-of-a-mysql-db/21182#21182 It uses the table [**information_schema.columns**][1] to pick up every CHAR, VARCHAR, and TEXT field and perform a textual [**REPLACE**][2]. Please look over my old link and use its paradigm to do a search. As an example, this will create a separate SELECT for each text column in every table SELECT CONCAT('SELECT ',QUOTE(db),',',QUOTE(tb),',',QUOTE(col),' ,COUNT(1) FieldHasIt FROM ',db,'.',tb,' WHERE ',col,'=''',SearchString,'''') SearchSQL FROM ( SELECT table_schema db,table_name tb,column_name col FROM information_schema.columns WHERE table_schema = 'mydb' AND (column_type LIKE 'char(%' OR column_type LIKE 'varchar(%' OR column_type LIKE '%text') ) A,(SELECT 'Hello' SearchString) B; Create a Giant SQL text file with it. Then, execute that Giant SQL script: SQLSTMT="SELECT CONCAT('SELECT ',QUOTE(db),',',QUOTE(tb),',',QUOTE(col),',COUNT(1) FieldHasIt FROM ',db,'.',tb,' WHERE ',col,'=''',SearchString,'''') SearchSQL FROM (SELECT table_schema db,table_name tb,column_name col FROM information_schema.columns WHERE table_schema='store_qa' AND (column_type LIKE 'char(%' OR column_type LIKE 'varchar(%' OR column_type LIKE '%text')) A,(SELECT 'Hello' SearchString) B;" mysql -uroot -p... -ANe"${SQLSTMT}" > MegaSearch.sql mysql -uroot -p... -AN < MegaSearch.sql > MegaSearchResults.txt Give it a Try !!!. [1]: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/columns-table.html [2]: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/string-functions.html#function_replace