How to Unhide Rows and Columns in Excel

Suppose someone hidden certain rows or columns in an Excel sheet, but they forgot to unhide those before they shared that worksheet with you. What would you do to view all data? (if you want to, of course).

If you can’t see certain rows or columns in Excel, it may be because they are hidden. Excel provides a few different ways to unhides rows or columns. In this post, we are going to cover the different steps you can take to unhide single and multiple rows and columns.

Unhiding Rows in Excel

You can easily spot if a row is hidden in the worksheet. If there is a row number missing and there is a double line separator between two row numbers, then there is a row hidden between those rows (see the example image below).

Now, you can unhide the rows in three different ways.

The first method, hover your cursor over the edge between rows 2 and 4. Then, the cursor would change into a double arrow pointer, click on the pointer and drag it down to expose the hidden row.

In the second method, select the rows that contain the hidden row in between and right-click on them. Then, select the ‘Unhide’ option to unhide the row.

In the third method, select the rows that contain the hidden row in between and go to the ‘Home’ tab and click on the ‘Format’ icon in the Cells group. Then, click on the ‘Hide & Unhide’ menu and select the ‘Unhide Rows’ option.

As you can see, row 2 is now unhidden.

Unhiding Multiple Rows or All Rows

You can unhide multiple rows the same way you can unhide a single row.

To unhide multiple rows or all hidden rows, select all the rows in the sheet and then follow method 2 or 3 to unhide them.

Unhiding Columns in Excel

You have seen how to unhide rows, now, let’s see how you can unhide columns. You can unhide the hidden columns the same way you can unhide rows.

First, find the hidden column; you can find them by looking for a missing letter in the column headers or a double line separator between two column letters.

For example, the screenshot below shows columns A, C, D, E, and F with data in a spreadsheet. Here column B is hidden, as it’s missing in the column headers and you see a double line separator in its place.

To reveal the hidden column, just hover your cursor over the edge between columns A and C. The cursor would change into a double arrow pointer, click on the pointer and drag it to the right to expose the hidden row.

You can also unhide a hidden column by right-click method. Select the columns that contain the hidden column in between. When you select columns make sure to select them with column headers. Then, right-click on the selected columns and select the ‘Unhide’ option to unhide the hidden column.

Or you can expose the hidden column by the ‘Format’ method. Select the columns that contain the hidden column in between and go to the ‘Home’ tab and click on the ‘Format’ icon in the Excel Ribbon. Then, expand the ‘Hide & Unhide’ menu and select the ‘Unhide Columns’ option.

Now, column B is successfully unhidden.

Unhiding Multiple Columns or All Columns

You can unhide multiple columns the same way you can unhide a single column.

If you want to unhide multiple columns or all hidden columns, select all the columns in the sheet by pressing ‘CTRL + A’. Then, follow the right-click method or Format cells method as shown above.