Sometimes when working with spreadsheet programs like Google Sheets, you may end up with a few empty rows and blank cells.
If you only have a few empty rows you can delete them manually, however, if you have a sheet with thousands of lines, you’re going to want to take the time to learn an efficient way to remove all these blank rows.
In this tutorial, I will show you a few methods that you can use to quickly delete empty rows in Google Sheets.
Table of Contents
Sort and Delete Empty Rows
One of the easiest methods to remove all the blank rows in Google Sheets is to sort your data.
When you sort your spreadsheet, you can make it so that all of your empty rows are together, at which point it will be easy to select and delete them all.
But really if you sort your data properly, all the empty rows will be at the bottom, you wouldn’t even need to delete them.
Here’s how to sort your data to get rid of empty rows:
1. Select your entire sheet by clicking in the top left square or press CTRL + A on your keyboard to select all
2. In the top menu select Data and then select Sort range
3. If your data has headers, select Data has header row, then sort by the first column from A to Z.
4. At this point all your empty rows should be at the bottom of the data, so you can leave them be, or highlight and delete them if you wish
This is a very simple method, however you will not be able to get your data back in the original order if your data wasn’t in some kind of alphebetical or numerical order already. If you want to retain the original order of your spreadsheet, the filter and delete method below is best
Filter and Delete Empty Rows
A better method is to use filtering to filter all the blank cells and delete them. This will retain your spreadsheet’s original order without sorting it.
Here’s how this is done:
- First, select your entire spreadsheet by clicking in the top left corner or pressing CTRL + A on your keyboard
2. In the top menu select Data
3. In the drop-down menu select Create a filter
4. Click on the filter button
5. Select Clear, this will unselect all the options, which is what we want.
6. Then select Blanks, this tells google sheets to select all the blank rows in your sheet.
7. Select the OK button at the bottom.
8. Your data is now filtered to only show the blank rows. Now we can select and delete them all. Click on the top row on the left-hand side to highlight the entire row
9. On your keyboard press CTRL + SHIFT + DOWN. This will select all the rows.
10. After all the rows have been selected, right-click with your mouse and select the Delete selected rows option
11. All of the blank rows will now be deleted. In the top menu select Data and then choose Turn off filter
12. You should now see all of the rows with data return, and all the blank rows will have been removed
Closing Thoughts
Those are the two best options for removing all the blank rows from your spreadsheet. The sorting method is quicker, but you won’t be able to retain the original order of your data set.
If retaining your order is important, the filter option is the one you should go with.
Be sure to watch the video at the top of the page if you need further help on these steps.
More Google Sheets Tutorials:
How to Sort by Date
How to Insert Rows
How to Transpose Data