How to Hide and Unhide Rows in Google Sheets

When creating your Google Sheets spreadsheets, you may often need to hide rows to hide sensitive or calculated data. This could be formulas, or calculations that you’re using elsewhere but don’t want user to modify/edit by mistake. In such cases, hiding the rows is an easy way to ensure your data remains safe and not corrupted. In this post, we will see how to hide and unhide rows in Google Sheets.

Google Sheets makes it easy to organize large spreadsheets without deleting information you may need later. One of the simplest ways to keep a spreadsheet clean and manageable is to hide rows that you don’t currently need to see.

How to Hide a Row in Google Sheets

How to hide a single row

Follow below steps if you want to hide a single row or column in Google Sheets:

1. Select the row: Open the Google Sheets and select the row by clicking the row number on the left side of the spreadsheet
2. Right click to open command menu with several options.
3. From the command menu, select Hide Row.

The selected row will be immediately hidden and a small arrow is shown between the surrounding row numbers indicating presence of a hidden row.

How to Hide Multiple Rows

Above step works great if you want to hide one row at a time. But what if you want to hide multiple rows? Follow below steps to hide multiple rows at a time without hiding each row one at a time.

Hiding Consecutive Rows

1. Once you’ve opened your spreadsheet
2. Select all the rows you want to hide by clicking from starting row to end row
3. Right-click to open the command menu
4. Click Hide rows

For example, if you want to hide rows 10-15

1. Select rows 10-15
2. Right click in the left margin of selected rows
3. Click Hide rows 10-15

Rows from 10-15 will be hidden at once.

Hiding Non-Consecutive Rows

Hiding non-consecutive rows involves little bit of manual work.

1. Open the spreadsheet
2. Select all the rows you want to hide. Use CMD on MAC and CTRL on Windows to select multiple rows at a time
3. Right click in the left margin to open menu item
4. Click Hide Rows

It will hide the selected rows from the view.

How to Unhide Rows in Google Sheets

Good thing about hiding rows in Google Sheets is that it doesn’t remove or delete your data. It just hides them from view so you (or your user) couldn’t see them. At any point, if you want to see the hidden rows, you can unhide them to view their content.

Follow below steps to unhide rows in Google Sheets and make hidden rows visible again:

1. Find the hidden rows(s): As said earlier, hidden rows have an arrow around them. Look for small pair of arrows between two rows to find the hidden rows
2. Click the small arrows between the row numbers
3. Google Sheets will unhide the rows and make them visible again

Right Click to Unhide a Row

Similar to how you hid the rows, you can also unhide them using right click.

1. Select the rows surrounding the hidden row
2. Right click to open menu item
3. If the selected rows have hidden rows in between, it will give option to Unhide Rows
4. Click on Unhide Rows to make hidden rows visible again

How to Unhide Multiple Rows

If you have several consecutive rows hidden, look for the arrows indicating hidden section. Click the arrow to unhide the rows in one-go.

If you have multiple separate rows hidden, then follow above steps to unhide each section individually.

Does Hiding a Row Delete the Data?

Short answer? No. When you hide a row, the information present in the row still remains in your Google Sheet. It won’t remove the data. calculations, or any other information you entered in those rows.

While, when you delete a row, it remove information present in the those rows.

For example, imagine you have a sales spreadsheet containing:

If you hide John’s row, the data is still there. You’re simply choosing not to display that row. You can use the information in calculations or to display in chart and it won’t impact anything.

Hide Rows vs. Delete Rows

These two options serve very different purposes.

When to Hide a row

• You may need the information later.
• You want a cleaner spreadsheet.
• You’re temporarily removing information from view.
• You want to keep supporting data available.
• You don’t want to change the underlying dataset.

When to Delete a Row

• You are certain you no longer need the data.
• The rows are genuinely unwanted.
• You want to permanently remove the information.

If you’re unsure, hide the rows instead of deleting them.

You can always unhide a row later.

How to Hide Rows Using Google Sheets on Mobile

While above steps work well to hide and unhide rows on desktop, Google Sheets mobile app has slightly different controls.

Here are the steps to hide a row:

1. Open the spreadsheet in the Google Sheets app.
2. Tap the row number.
3. Open the row’s menu.
4. Select the option to hide the row.

The exact appearance of the menu can vary depending on whether you’re using Android or iPhone/iPad and the current version of the app.

FAQ on how to hide and unhide rows in Google Sheets

Working Template

Hiding rows is a simple feature in Google Sheets, but it is really useful when you’re selling spreadsheets. Hiding rows with complex formulas make your spreadsheets look clean and give professional look to your buyers.

Once your template is ready, the next step is getting it listed. Check out How to Sell Google Sheets on Etsy for a full walkthrough of setting up your shop and writing a listing that converts.

And if you would rather start with a done-for-you base than build from scratch, take a look at our PLR Google Sheets templates, they are already formatted and ready to customize and protect before you sell.