Delete Sheet in Excel (Shortcut)

You can have multiple sheets in each workbook in Excel.

By default, when you open a new excel workbook, it would have one worksheet already inserted in the workbook. Excel Versions prior to Excel 2019 used to have three worksheets by default whenever you opened a new Excel workbook.

Most Excel users work with multiple worksheets in a workbook, and often also have a need to delete some of these worksheets.

In this short tutorial, I will show you the keyboard shortcuts you can use to quickly delete sheets in Excel.

Shortcut to Delete Sheet

Below is the keyboard shortcut to Delete a Sheet in Excel:

ALT + H + D + S

How to Use the Keyboard Shortcut to Delete Sheet

Below are the steps to use the above keyboard shortcut to delete a sheet in an Excel file:

  1. Activate the Sheet that you want to delete
  2. Use the keyboard shortcut ALT + H + D + S by pressing one key after the other
  3. Excel would show you a prompt that will inform you that the sheet would be deleted permanently. Click OK on that prompt

Note: there’s another keyboard shortcut that you can use to delete a sheet in Excel – ALT + E + L. While this old keyboard shortcut still works in the newer versions of Excel, it is recommended that you use the ALT + H + D + L shortcut instead

Important Things to Know:

Below are some important things to know when using a shortcut to delete sheets in Excel:

  1. Once you delete a sheet, you cannot undo it. This is why you see a prompt where Excel asks you whether you confirm you want to delete the sheet or not.
  2. Excel will only show you a prompt while deleting a sheet when there is some data or used range in the sheet. If you insert a new worksheet and then delete it, it won’t show you that prompt
  3. If you want to delete multiple sheets in one go, group all the sheets together by holding the Shift key and then selecting the first sheet and the last sheet, and then use this keyboard shortcut to delete sheets in Excel
  4. There needs to be at least one worksheet in every workbook in Excel. If you try and delete all the sheets in the workbook, Excel will not allow you to do that

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I am a huge fan of Microsoft Excel and love sharing my knowledge through articles and tutorials. I work as a business analyst and use Microsoft Excel extensively in my daily tasks. My aim is to help you unleash the full potential of Excel and become a data-slaying wizard yourself.

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