How to Delete a Sheet in Excel

In Excel, you might only use a single worksheet or a combination of many worksheets.

Excel allows you to add up to 255 worksheets in a single Excel workbook. Adding a worksheet is all about a click on the ‘+’ sign that sides right to the sheet tabs on the bottom of your Excel workbook.

However, once you are done working, you might find some Excel worksheets redundant and may want to delete them. The good thing is Excel allows you to remove those unnecessary worksheets from your workbook very easily.

The article below elucidates multiple methods of how you can delete unwanted worksheets from your workbook to shape them to your needs.

1. Ribbon Option

This is the most straightforward and the quickest way to delete a sheet from your workbook.

Consider the following example.

In this workbook, there are four worksheets, namely Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3, and Sheet4. If you want to delete Sheet1, follow the steps below.

Step 1

Select Sheet1 with a right-click.

Step 2

Select the “Home” tab.

Step 3

Select the “Delete” option from Ribbon. A drop-down list will appear. Select the “Delete Sheet” option from the drop-down list.

Step 4

A warning box will appear asking to delete the Sheet. Selecting the “Delete” button will permanently delete the selected Sheet from your workbook.

Step 5

Select the “Delete” button, and you have removed Sheet1 from your workbook.

Delete Adjacent Sheets using the Ribbon Option

You can also delete multiple sheets using the Ribbon option. To delete adjacent sheets, press and hold the Shift key and select the first Sheet and the last Sheet that you want to delete.

For instance, to delete sheets from Sheet1 to Sheet3, hold ‘Shift’ and click Sheet1. Do not release the ‘Shift’ button before you click ‘Sheet3’.

In doing so, Excel would select all adjacent sheets starting from Sheet1 to Sheet3.

Now repeat the above-mentioned steps to delete the selected sheet.

Delete Non-Adjacent Sheets using the Ribbon Option

If you want to delete non-adjacent sheets, you can do it using the Ctrl key. Press and hold the Ctrl key and select the Sheets that you want to delete one by one. Now repeat the above-explained method to delete the selected sheets.

2. Right-Click Option

Under this option, deleting sheets in Excel is all about two clicks.

Consider the example below whereby we have four sheets.

From these four sheets, let’s say you want to delete Sheet 2. Here are the simple steps that you must follow in order to delete Sheet 2 using the right-click option.

Step 1

Right-click on the sheet to be removed, which in this case is Sheet2.

Step 2

Choose the Delete option from the list of options that opens up upon right-clicking on the sheet.

Step 3

Select the Delete option from the system Prompt.

The right-click technique can also be used for non-active sheets.

How? If you are working with Sheet 2 and want to delete Sheet 3, you don’t need to go to Sheet 3 for that. Right-click on the tab for Sheet 3 and select delete from the list of options that launches.

Pro Tip:

In addition, you can delete multiple Sheets, either adjacent or non-adjacent, by using the right-click technique. Excel allows users to select multiple sheets in one go by holding the control key simultaneously while sheet selection. Once you’ve selected the desired sheets, you can release the Control key. 

After all the desired sheets are selected, simply right-click on any selected sheet's tab and choose the delete option from the menu to delete all the selected sheets. 

3. Keyboard Shortcuts

Worksheets in Excel can be deleted using keyboard shortcuts. There can be two techniques to do so i.e. a Hybrid Keyboard shortcut, and the other is a Regular keyboard shortcut.

Let us see both techniques one by one.

3.1. Using a Hybrid keyboard shortcut

The hybrid keyboard shortcut uses, both mouse and keyboard combinations to delete any Sheet from the workbook. The Hybrid keyboard shortcut is:

Right-click + D

To delete any sheet or sheets in Excel, right-click on the Sheet you want to delete and press the ‘D’ key from your keyboard. It is faster than using only right-click and selecting Delete from the menu.

3.2. Using a Regular Keyboard Shortcut

You can delete any active worksheet using only the keyboard. For this, the keyboard shortcut is:

ALT + H + D + S

In this shortcut, you do not need to press the keys simultaneously, but one after another. The only limitation is that you can delete only active worksheets by this shortcut.

3.2.1. Using Legacy Keyboard Shortcut

If you remember, before ribbon style, keyboard shortcuts were used to execute various functions in Excel. For compatibility reasons, these shortcuts are still applicable to newer versions of Excel. Such legacy shortcuts still work for deleting any sheet from the workbook. The keyboard shortcut is:

ALT + E + L

For many reasons, this shortcut is faster than many other techniques. Just press the said keys in succession, and the active sheet would be deleted.

Related Tutorial: How to Delete Columns in Excel

Conclusion

A worksheet is an area that allows you to store your data and use various functions to fetch the desired results. Excel allows you to add a fine number of worksheets to manage your data.

Likewise, you can remove unwanted sheets once you are done working in Excel. The foregoing techniques are expected to help you with deleting worksheets through normal Excel working practices.

A little practice can help you master the foregoing techniques in no time!