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How to Delete and Remove Blank Rows in Excel Documents

As an Excel power user for over 10 years, I have frequently needed to delete or remove blank rows from Excel workbooks and documents. Keeping spreadsheets clean and free of empty rows makes them easier to read and analyze. In this comprehensive guide, I will explain multiple methods to delete blank rows in Excel using keyboard shortcuts, formulas, and other built-in Excel features.

Why Remove Blank Rows?

Here are some key reasons you may want to delete blank rows in an Excel sheet:

  • Improve legibility – Removing blank rows cleans up the spreadsheet and makes it easier to read and scan. This improves the experience for anyone viewing or editing the document.
  • Save printing costs – Deleting blank rows can significantly reduce the number of pages needed to print a sheet. This saves on paper, ink, and other resources.
  • Shrink file size – Blank rows add to the overall file size of an Excel document. Removing them helps keep the file compact, which is especially important if you need to email or transfer it.
  • Simplify analysis – Many Excel features like filters, charts, formulas, etc. can get confused by blank rows. Deleting them streamlines your analysis.
  • Update dynamic data connections – Some blank rows can cause problems refreshing or importing external data from sources like stock quotes, database tables, and web pages.

Method 1 – Delete Blank Rows Manually

The quickest way to delete blank rows is to manually select and delete them:

  1. Select the blank rows you want to delete by clicking the row number. To select multiple rows, hold down CTRL while clicking row numbers.
  2. Right-click and choose Delete from the context menu.
  3. The selected blank rows will be removed immediately.

You can also use the following keyboard shortcuts:

  • Delete key – With cells selected in the blank rows, press Delete on your keyboard.
  • CTRL + Minus – Select the rows and use the CTRL + - shortcut to delete the blank rows.

Manually removing blank rows works well for small Excel files. But it can be tedious in large spreadsheets, especially those with hundreds or thousands of rows. Let’s look at more efficient ways to find and delete blank rows in Excel.

Method 2 – Use Go To Special to Select Blank Cells

The Go To Special dialog box has a handy option to instantly select all blank cells in an Excel sheet:

  1. Navigate to the Home tab on the ribbon.
  2. Click the Find & Select dropdown and choose Go To Special.
  3. Check Blanks in the dialog and click OK.

This will select all blank cells in the current sheet.

  1. Once cells are selected, press Delete to remove the corresponding blank rows.

Go To Special detects blanks more accurately than filtering. But it still requires manually deleting each row. Next I’ll cover how filters can automate this process.

Method 3 – Filter to Remove Blank Rows

Excel Filtering is an easy way to find and delete blank rows in large spreadsheets:

  1. Click the filter drop-down in the top header row.
  2. Uncheck the box next to (Blanks) under the filter menu.
  3. This will hide all rows where the filtered column is blank.
  4. With blank rows hidden, right-click on the visible rows and choose Delete.
  5. Finally, clear the filter to show all remaining rows.

Follow these same steps to filter and delete blank rows based on any column, not just the first. This works great to clean up scattered blank rows in large sheets.

For more advanced filtering, you can also use Custom Filters and set criteria like “Equals blank” to find empty cells.

Method 4 – Use the COUNTBLANK Formula

The COUNTBLANK formula is useful to count total blank rows in an Excel data set:

=COUNTBLANK(range)

For example, to count blanks in column A rows 1 to 100:

=COUNTBLANK(A1:A100)

This formula counts cells in the specified range that are empty. Let’s use it to conditionally highlight all blank rows for deletion:

  1. Add a helper column at the end of your data set and apply this formula to identify blank rows.
  2. Use conditional formatting rules to highlight blank rows.
  3. Filter and delete highlighted rows in one step.

This avoids manually checking each line and provides a clear automated indicator of which rows to remove.

Method 5 – Use Macro VBA to Delete All Blank Rows

For the most flexible approach, you can use a Macro-enabled workbook and write VBA code to delete all blank rows:

Sub DeleteBlankRows()

    Dim i As Long
    For i = Cells(Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row To 1 Step -1
        If WorksheetFunction.CountA(Rows(i)) = 0 Then
            Rows(i).Delete
        End If
    Next i

End Sub

Here is what this VBA code does to remove blanks:

  1. Loops from last row with data to the first row
  2. Checks if the entire row contains no values
  3. Deletes row if it is completely blank

To use this, insert a new VBA module and paste the code. Then run the macro to instantly delete all empty rows.

The benefit of macros is you can customize and automate all aspects of deleting blanks based on your needs.

Top Tips for Managing Blank Cells

Here are some final best practices for handling blank rows in Excel:

  • Before deleting, review blanks carefully to ensure no important hidden data is lost.
  • Be very cautious deleting rows with formulas, as it can cause errors.
  • When possible, delete rows from the bottom up to avoid disrupting formulas that reference cells.
  • Save a copy before making major row deletions in case you need to reverse the changes.
  • Set worksheet protection on important cells/ranges to prevent accidental deletion.

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