Shortcut to Delete Row in Excel
As you know, Excel is a very user-friendly software for daily business purpose data manipulation. In daily data management, we maintain the data in excel sheets; however, sometimes we need to delete the row and n number of rows from the data; in excel, you can delete the selected row just by CTRL –(minus sign).
To quickly delete multiple rows, use the same shortcut.
Also, have a look at this list of Excel Shortcuts.
How to Delete Row In Excel Shortcut?
Let’s understand the working of the excel shortcut key with given below simple examples.
Deleting a Row Using Excel (ctrl -) Shortcut – Example #1
Let’s consider a sales data set, as shown in the below table, to apply the delete row in excel shortcut operation.
Select the row which you want to delete from the sales data table. Here we pick row number three.
Then just press CTRL – (minus sign)
You will get the below four options to decide the place for the remaining data
- That are shift cells left
- Shift cells up (by default)
- Entire Row
- Entire Column
By pressing the R button, you will select the entire Row from the available option, then hit OK.

4.9 (1,353 ratings) 35+ Courses | 120+ Hours | Full Lifetime Access | Certificate of Completion
The output will be: Row number three will be deleted from the given data set.
Deleting a Row Using Right Click – Example #2
Let consider the below country-wise sales data, and you want to delete row 2 from it.
Just select row 2 and right-click and select the delete option, as shown in the below screenshot.
You will get the below four options to decide the place for the remaining data.
Those are;
- Shift cells left.
- Shift cells up (by default)
- Entire Row
- Entire Column
Here, we select the entire Row a from the available option then hit OK.
The output will be:
Deleting the Multiple Rows – Example #3
In this example, we will apply the shortcut key on multiple rows at once.
Let’s consider the below table and select the multiple rows from the below table which you want to delete from this table. Suppose we want to delete the 3,4 & 5th row from the below table.
Then select the 3,4 and 5th row and press CTRL –
Select the Entire Row and Click OK
And you will get the below table after deletion.
Things to Remember
- Always select the entire row option while deleting the row; otherwise, you will face the wrong data moving problem in your table.
- Suppose you select the shift cell up option from the table, then only the cell from the table gets deleted, not the whole row, and your data from the below cell get shifted upwards.
- Suppose you select the shift cell left option from the table, then only the cell from the table gets deleted, not the whole row, and whole row data gets shifted to the left.
- If you select the entire column option, then the selected column gets deleted.
Recommended Articles
Here we covered the Keyboard shortcut to Delete Row in Excel. Here we discuss how to Delete Row in Excel using Shortcut – 1) Using CTRL (-) 2) Using Right Click 3) Deleting the Multiple Rows along with practical examples. You may learn more about excel from the following articles.
- 35+ Courses
- 120+ Hours
- Full Lifetime Access
- Certificate of Completion