Can i hide a google sheet from others?

Table of Contents Show

Hide a Single Sheet
Hide Multiple Sheets at Once
Temporarily Hiding Columns in Google Sheets
Using the Protect Range Feature of Google Sheets to Hide Columns from Certain Users
Using IMPORTRANGE to Hide Columns from Certain Users in Google Sheets
What Happens When You Use the IMPORTRANGE METHOD to Hide and Protect a Column?
Can you make a Google Sheet private?
How do you restrict who can view a sheet in Google Sheets?
Can you hide cells in Google sheets from certain users?

When you have a workbook with many sheets, it can feel tedious to scroll between them. In Google Sheets, you can hide your sheet tabs to see only those you need. Then, unhide them when the time comes to view them again.

Hiding sheet tabs in Google Sheets is handy when you need to move from one sheet to another but those sheets are on the furthest opposite sides of the tab row. You may not want to rearrange the order of the tabs so that they’re closer together and would rather only see those you need.

Here’s how to hide one or more spreadsheets and then unhide them later.

Hide a Single Sheet

To hide just one sheet, either right-click the tab or click the arrow in the tab to the right of the sheet name. Then, pick “Hide Sheet.”

The first time you hide a sheet tab after opening your workbook, you’ll see a brief confirmation message in the bottom right corner of Google Sheets.

Hide Multiple Sheets at Once

In 2021, Google implemented a new feature in Sheets allowing you to select multiple tabs. This makes it convenient to move, copy, or delete several sheets at once. With that comes the ability to hide multiple sheet tabs.

RELATED: How to Copy or Move a Spreadsheet in Google Sheets

Select the sheet tabs you want to hide one of these ways:

For non-adjacent tabs on Windows, hold Ctrl as you select each one.
For non-adjacent tabs on Mac, hold Command as you select each one.
For adjacent tabs on either platform, select the first tab, hold Shift, and click the last tab.

When you have multiple sheet tabs selected, they appear white while non-selected tabs remain gray. Right-click or use the tab arrow for one of the tabs in the group and pick “Hide Sheets.”

Whether you hide one or more sheets, you unhide them the same way. Go to the View tab and you’ll see an option for Hidden Sheets along with the number of sheets hidden. Use the pop-out menu to select the sheet(s) you want to unhide.

When you unhide a sheet, you’ll see it appear in the same spot in the tab row as before you hid it.

RELATED: All the Best Google Sheets Keyboard Shortcuts

Instead of working on one sheet, using an arrow or shortcut to scroll and work on the next one, and then go back again, just hide the sheet tabs you don’t need in Google Sheets.

Temporarily Hiding Columns in Google Sheets

In general, most Google Sheets users like to hide columns away from view to reduce distractions, or get a better view of other data columns.

Here’s how it’s done:

Select the headers of the columns you want to hide.
Right-click on your selection.
Click on ‘Hide column(s)’ from the context menu that appears.

This will hide your selected columns, as shown below. You should see arrows next to the two columns before and after the hidden columns:

Notice in the above screenshot, the ‘Location’ column is now hidden.

Users with whom your worksheet is shared will also find the column(s) hidden.

However, these columns are only temporarily hidden. This means anyone (including other users who have access to the worksheet) can easily click on one of the arrows before or after hidden columns to unhide them.

Note: Hidden columns do not get printed. They also don’t appear in the worksheet’s print preview.

Using the Protect Range Feature of Google Sheets to Hide Columns from Certain Users

Sometimes you might want to hide certain columns because they contain sensitive data. You might not want other users to tamper with or change the contents of those columns.

In such cases, simply hiding the columns with the ‘Hide columns’ option will not work. You would also need to protect the columns.

Here’s how you can hide and protect columns from certain users in Google Sheets:

Once you do this, the users who don’t have edit access will see that there are hidden column(s), but they will not be able to unhide the column(s), so they will, in turn, not be able to see or make any changes to the column(s).

Here’s the message that they will see if they try to unhide the column(s):

But there is a catch here. This will not completely prevent them from viewing the contents of this column. The users can easily make a copy of the worksheet and then unhide the columns in the duplicate sheet.

In other words, this technique prevents users from making changes to the original sheet’s contents. But it cannot prevent users from making changes to the columns in a separate copy of the worksheet.

Using IMPORTRANGE to Hide Columns from Certain Users in Google Sheets

If columns in your sheet contain secret information that you don’t want other users to see at all, simply protecting the columns will not be enough. Unfortunately, there is no way to completely hide columns on Google Sheets, at least not as of yet.

But here’s a hack that might work. It might not be very straightforward and might need a little more effort on your part, but we found this to be the most effective way so far.

The hack involves using the IMPORTRANGE formula to import the column(s) from a separate, private file, and then protecting and hiding the columns(s) in the shared file.

The IMPORTRANGE function is a handy Google Sheets function that lets you access cells from a separate Google Sheets file. The syntax or the function is as follows:

IMPORTRANGE(url,sheet_name!cell_range)

Here,

url is the url of the file from where you want to import the data
sheet_name is the name of the worksheet that you want to import data from
cell_range is the range of cells that you want to import

Both parameters of the function should be enclosed in double quotes.

Here are the steps to hide columns from certain users in Google Sheets using the IMPORTRANGE function:

First create a private sheet containing the columns you want to hide from other users (You can choose to grant access to those users who you don’t mind sharing the details with though).

Now open the file that you want to share with other users.

In this file, you can import the columns (that you want to protect from certain users) from your private file. But you have to make sure that the column where you import the cells does not already contain any data.

To import the cells, click on the first cell of the column and use the IMPORTRANGE function to import the range of cells. So if you want to import cells B1:B9 from Sheet1 of your private file, you can type:

 =IMPORTRANGE(“url”,”Sheet1!B1:B9)

You will enter the URL of the private file instead of the word “url” here.

Notice that this will copy all the cells from the given range into the column where you entered the formula.

Now use the ‘Protect Range’ feature to protect the column where you inserted the formula (as shown in the previous section).

Use the ‘Hide Column’ feature to hide the column (as shown in the first section of this article).

You are now all set to share this new file.

What Happens When You Use the IMPORTRANGE METHOD to Hide and Protect a Column?

When you apply this technique to hide and protect a column, all users can see that there is a column or a set of hidden columns. But users who do not have edit permissions will not be allowed to unhide the columns.

They will see a message as shown below:

Now what happens if the user makes a copy of the sheet?

In this case, again all the columns will get copied to the new sheet. The user can still see that there are hidden columns.

However, when they try to unhide the columns, they will see a #REF! error. When they hover over the cell containing the error message, they will see a message that says: “You don’t have permission to access that sheet.”

This is because the IMPORTRANGE function is trying to access a file that the user does not have access to.

Note: When you want to make changes to data in the hidden columns, you will need to make the changes in the private file (not the shared file). Since the IMPORTRANGE function works dynamically, the changes you make will automatically get updated in your shared file.

These were some handy tips and tricks that you can use the next time you want to hide any columns from prying eyes. We hope our explanations were clear and helpful.

Nahid

Nahid Akhter is a writer, programmer, and online course content creator. She has an MS in Computer Science and has been in the education line for more than 14 years. Her specialization is in programming and Tech-writing, and her areas of interest include Office productivity, Artificial Intelligence, and Web design and development.

Can you make a Google Sheet private?

Protect individual worksheets in a Google Spreadsheet. To do this, select Tools from the menu and choose Protect sheet. You have the option to set permissions, much like a Google Doc, that will give editing rights to: anyone invited as a collaborator; only you; or a list of collaborators.

How do you restrict who can view a sheet in Google Sheets?

Protect, hide, and edit sheets.

Open a spreadsheet in Google Sheets..

Click Data. Protected sheets and ranges. ... .

Click Add a sheet or range or click an existing protection to edit it..

To protect a range, click Range. ... .

Click Set permissions or Change permissions..

Choose how you want to limit editing: ... .

Click Save or Done..

Can you hide cells in Google sheets from certain users?

Here's how it's done: Select the headers of the columns you want to hide. Right-click on your selection. Click on 'Hide column(s)' from the context menu that appears.