Merge or Unmerge Cells in Excel (Shortcut)

It’s quite common for many excel users to merge cells so that multiple cells can be shown as one and contain one single text or formula.

This is often the case where people have multiple headings and they want to merge cells to show one overall heading and then multiple subheadings within it (as shown below).

Merged Cells in a Dataset

In this tutorial, I will give you the keyboard shortcut to Merge or Unmerge Cells in Excel

Shortcut to Merge or Unmerge Cells in Excel

Below is the keyboard shortcut to Merge and Unmerge Cells in Excel:

ALT + H + M + C

The above keyboard shortcut would merge all the selected cells into one and then center the content of the cells.

Note: If you already have some content in the cells, Excel would show you a warning letting you know that all the content would be gone and only the content in the top left cell would remain

Merge Cells Warning in Excel when there is data in the cells

The same key shortcut can be used to merge as well as unmerged cells in Excel.

Below are some more merge keyboard shortcuts in Excel:

  • Merge Across – ALT + H + M + A
  • Merge Cells – ALT + H + M + M
  • Unmerge Cells – ALT + H + M + U

How to Use the Keyboard Shortcut to Merge or Unmerge Cells in Excel

Below are the steps to use the above keyboard shortcut:

  1. Select the cells that you want to merge or unmerge
  2. Use the keyboard shortcut ALT + H + M + C by pressing these keys one after the other

If the selected cells were unmerged, these would be merged, and if the cells were already merged, then these would be unmerged

Important Things to Know About Merge or Unmerge Cells in Excel:

  • When you merge cells, you lose the data in all the cells except the top left cell of the selection. and you do not get this data back when you unmerge these cells
  • Merging cells is often problematic as you lose some of the functionalities such as filtering the data that has merged cells or sorting the data with merged cells

Alternate Ways to Merge or Unmerge Cells in Excel

Other Excel shortcuts you may also like:

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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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