Having empty rows in your Excel data can cause headaches. They can mess up sorting, filtering, and make your spreadsheets look unprofessional. Here’s how to get rid of those pesky blank rows using a few different methods.
Method 1: Using “Go To Special” for Quick Removal
This method is often the fastest for removing completely empty rows.
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Select the area of your spreadsheet that contains the data, where you want to delete blank rows.
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Go to the Home tab, then click on Find & Select and choose Go To Special.
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In the “Go To Special” box, select Blanks and hit OK.
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Now, all the blank cells will be highlighted. Right-click on any of these highlighted blank cells and select Delete.
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A “Delete” dialog box will pop up. Choose Entire Row and click OK to remove the rows.
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All of the completely empty rows from the selected data range will disappear.
You can also achieve the same result by clicking Home > Delete > Delete Sheet Rows after selecting the blank cells.
Method 2: Using the Filter Function to Remove Blank Rows
This is handy when you have rows with some cells filled and others are empty, but you want to remove only rows that are completely blank.
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Select the entire data range that you are using.
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Go to the Data tab, and click the Filter button (or use Ctrl+Shift+L shortcut).
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You’ll see filter arrows appear in the header cells of each column.
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Click on a filter arrow, deselect Select All, then scroll and select Blanks, and click OK.
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Repeat this for every column if you want to filter out rows that are blank across all columns.
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Now, you’ll see only the completely blank rows. Select these rows by clicking on their row numbers, the numbers will appear in blue.
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Right-click on the highlighted row numbers and choose Delete Row from the menu.
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Now, remove the filters by clicking the Filter button again. You should be back to your original dataset with the blank rows gone.
Method 3: Using the COUNTBLANK Function
This approach uses a formula to identify rows with a certain number of blank cells, giving you more control.
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Add a new column to the right of your data, you could call it “Blanks”.
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In the first cell of the new column, type in the
COUNTBLANKformula. For example, if your data runs from column B to column G, for the first row enter:=COUNTBLANK(B2:G2).
=COUNTBLANK(B2:G2)
This formula will count how many empty cells are in row 2, from columns B to G.
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Drag the formula down to apply it to all rows.
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Now apply a filter to the “Blanks” column you just created.
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Click the filter arrow in the “Blanks” column, and select the criteria for deleting rows. For example, if you want to delete rows with 4 or more empty cells, uncheck the numbers less than 4.
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The filtered rows will now be the ones you want to delete. Select those rows, right-click and choose Delete Row.
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Remove the filters and you’ll have your updated data.
Method 4: Using Find Functionality
You can also use the Find feature to locate the blank cells.
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Select your data range where you want to look for empty rows.
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Go to the Home tab, click Find & Select, and then select Find (or just use the shortcut Ctrl+F).
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Leave the “Find what” field blank, then click Options.
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Set “Look in” to Values, “Within” to Sheet, and “Search” to By Rows. Then click Find All.
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You will see all the blank cells listed. Hit Ctrl + A to select all of them and then close the dialog box.
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Go to Home > Delete > Delete Sheet Rows to remove those rows.
Method 5: Manually Deleting Blank Rows
If you only have a few blank rows, manual deletion is an option.
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Click on the row number of the blank row to select it. Hold down Ctrl and click the other row numbers you want to delete.
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Right-click one of the selected rows and choose Delete.
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The blank rows will now be gone.
