The secret way to hide worksheets in Excel
Hiding worksheets is a good way to reduce clutter in the tab strip and prevent unwanted use.
But did you know there are two ways to hide worksheets?
The simple way
Right-click on a tab and select Hide.
To make it reappear, right-click on any other tab and select Unhide. Ensure the correct sheet in the window is highlighted and hit OK.
The stealth way
Press Alt + F11 to open the VBA Editor.
Select a worksheet in Project Explorer and change the Visible dropdown in the Properties Window to 2 – xlSheetVeryHidden.
The worksheet will now be inaccessible in the Unhide window.
To reverse this, choose -1 – xlSheetVisible in the dropdown instead.
Other information
- Adjusting the Visible dropdown in the VBA Editor does not stop you from saving your workbook in XLSX format.
- Don’t use the VeryHidden option for highly sensitive or confidential data in a shared workbook. Otherwise, someone who knows what they’re doing could easily access it within seconds.
- And don’t think Excel’s flaky password protection is the answer, either.
