Deleting cells one by one is not an interesting job to do in Excel. When you are having a larger dataset, you cannot perform this task manually. You must be thinking about how to delete cells in Excel especially when the dataset is not small. Excel lets you delete cells for whatever reason you have easily with some built-in features. Blank cells in a sheet might not be ideal to see that’s why you need to delete them. Sometimes, these blank cells are in the sheet for future edits but for the time being, you don’t want to have these empty cells.
Let’s get started with different ways that let you understand how you can delete cells.
How to Delete Cells in Excel with Delete Cells Feature?
The Excel Home tab consists of many options and from there you can choose to delete cells option. Below are some easy-to-follow steps you can use for this procedure:
- Select the cell you need to delete.
- Click on the Home tab and choose the Cells option.
- Select the Delete Cells option given in the Delete menu.
- Suppose we choose cell B10.
- A dialog box will pop up in which you will see 4 delete options. From these options, you need to click on the Shift cells left option.
- Click OK.
- The Shift cells left option will simply delete the selected cell B10 while shifting other cells C10, D10, and E10 of the Location Product and Sales column to the left side.
- Now, let’s see how you can use the Shift Cells Up option given in the Delete options. It also lets you delete cells from a sheet.
- The second option of the Delete cells menu needs you to use a ribbon and choose a cell to delete.
- Click on the Home tab and choose the Cells option.
- Select Delete Cells from the Delete menu.
- Choose cell B10.
- A dialog box will appear that shows some Delete options.
- From these options click on Shift Cells Up and select OK.
- Ultimately, you will see the Shift cells up option has deleted the selected cell while shifting other cells B10:B15 upward.
How to Delete Cells in Excel with VBA?
With VBA, you can perform any function smoothly. Let’s see how VBA can help you in deleting cells in Excel.
As you know, VBA has a unique window to work in which you need to enter the codes.
Click on the Developer tab from the ribbon, it will open up the VBA window.
Now, choose the Visual Basic option given in the Code menu.
A new window of Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications will pop up.
Click on Insert and then choose Module.
Now, enter the code given below:
Sub Delete_Cells()
Range("b9").Delete
End Sub
Once the code is added to the window, close it.
Press ALT + F8 key.
Choose the following macro in the Macro name when the Macro dialog box pops up.
Click on the Run option.
You will see the selected cell is deleted and it shifted the other cells upward.
How to Delete a Single Cell in Excel?
In case, you need to delete a single cell from a sheet, you need to first select that cell. Now, press the Delete key from the keyboard. You will see the cell content is deleted and the cell is shifted to the left.
If you need to move the cell to the right, press the SHIFT + Delete keys.
Or else, you can even delete a cell by right-clicking on it and choosing Delete from the menu.
How to Delete Multiple Cells in Excel?
You can even delete more than one cell in Excel with the help of this shortcut command.
First of all select all the cells you need to delete.
Press the Delete key from the keyboard.
You will notice the cell content is deleted while it shifted those cells to the left.
To move those cells to the right, simply press the SHIFT + Delete keys.
Or else, you can delete them by right-clicking on those cells and choosing the Delete option.
How to Delete a Cell or Row in Excel?
Similar to the above methods, you can delete a cell or row. For this, you need to select the cell or row you need to delete.
- Press the Delete key from the keyboard. The cell content will be deleted first.
- It also shifts them to the left.
- You can move that cell or row to the right as well. For this, press the SHIFT + Delete keys.
- Or else right-click on the cell or row, and choose the Delete option from the menu.
Let’s Wrap Up:
In this post, you learned how to delete cells in Excel easily. Multiple shortcut commands are also explained other than the mouse pointer features. Practice all of the above methods so that you can have an idea of which method suits you the most.
