Excel Unplugged

Remove Blank Rows in Excel

How to remove blank rows in Excel? Let’s look at some examples for simple and complicated tables.

Simple Table

Let’s start with the following table.

Removing Blank Rows in Excel
Starting table

The table contains clean empty rows which we would like to remove.

Removing Blank Rows in Excel
Blank row

We select these empty cells by using Home > Find & Select > Go To > Special.

Removing Blank Rows in Excel
Selecting blank cells

A Go To Special menu opens up where we select Blanks.

Confirm with OK.

Removing Blank Rows in Excel
Selected blank cells

We now delete the selected empty rows with Delete and .

Or, we can use Home > Delete > Delete Table Rows.

By using filters

Another way is to use filters. We select the filter on any column, for example column Date.

We then select only Blanks.

Removing Blank Rows in Excel
Filtering blank rows

We get the filtered blank rows.

Removing Blank Rows in Excel, selected
Filtered blank rows

We delete the rows by selecting Home > Delete > Delete Table Rows.

In older versions of Excel this may not work. You first need to select visible cells: select Home > Find & Select > Go To > Special.

Removing Blank Rows in Excel
Selecting visible cells

Select Visible Cells only and confirm with OK.

Then delete rows same as before, using Ctrl and .

Complicated Table

Let’s look at how to remove blank rows in a complicated table. We now also have some individual blank cells, not just entire blank rows.

Removing Blank Rows in Excel
Starting table

Let’s again use Home > Find & Select > Go To > Special. We get all the blank cells selected.

Removing Blank Rows in Excel, selected blank cells
Selected blank rows

The problem is, if we now delete the selected cells, we lose all rows, except for the first one (which doesn’t contain any blanks).

This is why we’ll use a different approach here.

Solution 1: Create a New Column

One way is to concatenate all the cells into a single value. We do this by using the following formula.

= TEXTJOIN(»«, TRUE, EverydayTable[[@ID]:[Value]])

Removing Blank Rows in Excel
Creating new column

The new column looks like this.

Removing Blank Rows in Excel
New column Column1

We can now filter the new column to blanks. Select filter and only check (Blanks).

Removing Blank Rows in Excel
Selecting blanks

We’re left with two rows.

Removing Blank Rows in Excel
Filtered blank rows

We delete the selected rows by using Ctrl and .

Solution 2: Power Query

Power Query has a built-in command for removing blank rows, which makes it really simple.

Select Home > Remove Rows > Remove Blank Rows.

Removing Blank Rows in Excel
Removing Blank Rows command in Power Query

That’s it! Power Query is the clear winner here, wouldn’t you agree?

Watch the tutorial

Meanwhile, you can also watch the tutorial online on our YouTube channel!

Removing Blank Rows Video Tutorial

Please leave us a like, comment, and subscribe for more amazing Excel tricks!

Follow us on LinkedIn.

Check out R Academy!