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How to delete a row in Excel – our step-by-step guide

Deleting rows has never been so easy.

Reviewed By: Kevin Pocock

Last Updated on May 14, 2024
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Are you wondering how to delete rows in Excel? If so, then you’ve come to the right place.

If you’re new to Excel, it can be challenging even to perform the basic tasks, as you don’t want to mess up anything in the sheet. For instance, some people may find it tricky to delete a row.


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However, the process of removing rows in Excel is pretty straightforward, and we’ll walk you through it in this guide.

How to remove a row in Excel

Here is how you can quickly delete a row in Excel. Make sure to carefully select the row that you wish to delete, as you may end up deleting the wrong one. If that happens, just press CTRL + Z to undo the action.

Select a row

To quickly delete a row in Excel, you need to begin by choosing the row that you want to delete; you can do this by left-clicking on the row that you want from the leftmost bar, which is parallel to the row you want to delete.

These will be numbered so you can easily see which row it is you’re deleting.

Once you’ve selected your row, it should be highlighted in light gray. This is to ensure that you’ve selected the row you want to customize.

Highlighted row in Excel
Highlighted row in Excel

Press right-click

You can then right-click on the row number of the one you’ve selected and click on the ‘Delete’ option in the dropdown bar. This will immediately delete the row.

Screenshot of an Excel spreadsheet showing numerical data and a pop-up menu with the "Delete Row" option highlighted.
Quick delete button

If you’d prefer, you can also delete rows by right-clicking on a single cell that you’re using. Just make sure that it’s a part of the row that you wish to delete altogether.

Right-clicking on a cell within a row and then selecting ‘Delete’ will pop up an option box where you can choose to delete things from a list of characteristics; these are:

  • Shift cells left
  • Shift cells up
  • Entire row
  • Entire column
Screenshot of an Excel interface displaying a pop-up menu for deleting a row, with options "Entire row" and "Shift cells up", and "OK" and "Cancel" buttons.
Delete menu

For this specific purpose, you’ll just want to delete the entire row, but you can use this feature to delete anything in Excel.

Final words

So there it is; it’s that easy to delete rows on Excel. We hope that this guide was helpful for you, as Excel can be tricky. However, make sure to be careful when deleting rows, as you can end up removing the wrong one. This is a common mistake that you can make, especially when dealing with a large sheet.

Learn more about Excel through these guides:

Kevin is the Editor of PC Guide. He has a broad interest and enthusiasm for consumer electronics, PCs and all things consumer tech - and more than 15 years experience in tech journalism.