Switch Between Excel Workbooks (Shortcut)

If you’re like me, you probably have multiple Excel workbooks open at any given point in time.

And I would completely understand if you say that it’s very frustrating to switch between multiple open workbooks using your mouse.

Knowing the right keyboard shortcut to switch between Excel workbooks can be a great time saver, and help avoid a lot of frustration and cuss words.

In this tutorial, I will give you the shortcut to switch between open Excel workbooks.

Shortcut to Switch Between Excel Workbooks

Below is the keyboard shortcut to Switch Between Excel Workbooks:

Control + Tab

And if you’re using a Mac, you can use the below shortcut:

Command + `

How to Use the Keyboard Shortcut to Switch Between Excel Workbooks

Below are the steps to use the above keyboard shortcut:

  1. Activate any open Excel workbook
  2. Now to switch to other open workbooks, hold the Control key and then press the Tab key once on your keyboard

The above shortcut would make you switch from your current active Excel workbook to the next open Excel workbook on your system.

If you have multiple open Excel workbooks, you can continue to use this keyboard shortcut by holding the Control key and then keep on pressing the Tab key.

Every time you hit the Tab key (while still holding the Control key), Excel would switch to the next open workbook.

For example, if you have three open Excel workbooks, using Control + Tab once would take you from workbook 1 to workbook 2, and using it twice would take you from workbook 1 to workbook 3

If you want to switch Excel workbooks in the opposite direction (i.e., instead of going from workbook 2 to workbook 3 you want to go from workbook 2 to workbook 1), you can use the below keyboard shortcut

Control + Shift + Tab

To use the above keyboard shortcut, hold the Control key and the Shift key and then press the Tab key once

Important Things to Know About Switch Between Excel Workbooks:

  • You can continue to use the above shortcut to cycle through all the open workbooks. Once you have gone from the first workbook to the last one, using the keyboard shortcut again would take you back to the first workbook
  • This shortcut also works in other Microsoft applications such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint

Other Excel shortcuts you may also like:

Other Excel Tutorials You May Also Like:

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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