Don’t be afraid of a little hiding: How to conceal columns or rows in Google Sheets
Sometimes in your Google Sheets, you’ll have data that you don’t want others to see, like sensitive personal information or trade secrets that you don’t want competitors to have access to. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to keep this info hidden from prying eyes. In this article, we’ll show you how to hide columns or rows in Google Sheets with the click of a button or two. All it takes is a little bit of formatting and a couple of clicks, and you can keep your secret data private!
Hide Rows, Columns, or Both
You may find yourself in a situation where you need to hide data in your spreadsheet. Maybe you’re sharing sensitive information and want to make sure it’s not accidentally viewed by someone else. Or maybe you’re just trying to declutter your sheet and make it easier to read. Whatever the reason, hiding data in Google Sheets is easy to do. To hide one row at a time, right-click on any cell in that row and select Hide.
To see the hidden cells again, click on Unhide from the same menu. Hiding multiple rows is just as easy; select Hide Rows from the menu and then drag your cursor over all of the rows you want to hide. Once you’ve done this, all those rows will be shaded out.
Hide Things by Cell Color
You can quickly hide any data that falls below a certain threshold by using conditional formatting to color the cells. For example, you could make all cells with values below 50% green, and then hide all green cells. To do this, select the range of cells you want to format, click Format > Conditional formatting, and set the criteria to Less than and 50%. Then click the Format button and choose your desired color.
Green is one option for highlighting less-than-50%-values, but other colors will work as well. If you decide later that you want to see those hidden cells again, it’s just as easy to unhide them: simply find them on the spreadsheet, right-click on one of them, and pick Unhide All Cells from the contextual menu.
Hide Columns by Title and Header
You can hide columns in Google Sheets by going to the View menu and selecting Hide columns. You can also right-click on a column header and select Hide column. To hide multiple columns, click on the first column you want to hide, hold down the Shift key, and then click on the last column you want to hide.
Hide Data Across Multiple Spreadsheets
You may not want others to see everything in your spreadsheet. Luckily, it’s easy to hide data in Google Sheets. You can hide entire columns or rows, or just specific cells.
Create Your Own Fill Formatting
Google Sheets gives you a lot of control over how your data looks. One way to manipulate your data is by hiding certain columns or rows. This can be helpful if you want to focus on a specific set of data or if you want to make your sheet more presentable. Here’s how to do it
Hiding for Good
Hiding data in Google Sheets is a great way to declutter your worksheet and make it more presentable. But hiding data can also be helpful when you’re trying to focus on a specific set of information and want to temporarily remove distractions. How do I hide columns? Click the column header to select the column, then click the Format menu, choose Hide & Unhide, and select Hide Columns from the drop-down menu. The sheet now displays only those columns that are visible (and this changes automatically as you add or remove rows).
How do I hide rows? Select any cell in the row, then click Format > Hide & Unhide > Hide Rows. The sheet displays only those rows that are currently visible. To display hidden rows again, repeat these steps but use Show Rows instead of Hide Rows in the third step.
