how to delete a sheet in excel

Last updated: March 15, 2019

An Excel workbook can consist of a large number of individual worksheets that can be used independently of one another. It is much easier to navigate between multiple sheets in one workbook, plus it allows you to easily reference data in those other worksheets with formulas.

But if you have extra worksheets in one of your workbooks that contain data that you no longer need, you may decide that it is a good idea to delete that sheet. This can be accomplished almost as easily as deleting any other piece of data in an Excel workbook, so continue reading below to learn how to delete a sheet in Excel 2010.

How to Delete a Worksheet in Excel – Quick Summary

Open the Excel file.
Select the worksheet tab to delete at the bottom of the window.
Right-click the selected tab, then choose the Delete option.

In the section below we will show you another way to delete a worksheet in Excel, as well as display screenshots for all of the steps.

Delete an Entire Excel 2010 Worksheet

The tutorial below is going to delete an entire worksheet from your Excel 2010 workbook. If other sheets in your workbook include references to cells in the sheet that you are deleting, those formulas will not work correctly. Additionally, that worksheet will be deleted permanently. You will not be able to recover data from the worksheet once it has been deleted.

Step 1: Open the Excel workbook containing the sheet that you want to delete.

Step 2: Click the tab at the bottom of the window for the worksheet that you want to delete. In this example I am going to be deleting Sheet2.

Step 3: Click the Home tab at the top of the window.

Step 4: Click the arrow under the Delete button in the Cells section of the ribbon at the top of the window, then click the Delete Sheet button.

Step 5: Click the Delete button to confirm that you want to delete the sheet.

Alternatively, you can right-click the sheet tab that you want to delete, then click the Delete option.

right-click the worksheet, then click the delete button

If you want to remove a sheet from view, but you do not want to delete the data, you can also learn how to hide a sheet in Excel 2010.

Matthew Burleigh has been writing tech tutorials since 2008. His writing has appeared on dozens of different websites and been read over 50 million times.

After receiving his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Computer Science he spent several years working in IT management for small businesses. However, he now works full time writing content online and creating websites.

His main writing topics include iPhones, Microsoft Office, Google Apps, Android, and Photoshop, but he has also written about many other tech topics as well.

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