How to limit rows in Google Sheets

In this tutorial, you will learn how many rows can Google Sheets handle.

If you work with large Google Sheets files, you may find yourself wondering if theres a limit to the number of rows in Google Sheets. The good news is that there isnt a hard-and-fast limit to the number of rows you can have in Google Sheets, however, there are other issues that can limit the size of your spreadsheet

Cell Limits

While Google Sheets doesnt have a row limit, it does have a cell limit. At the time of writing, the limit is 5 million cells. So if you have one tab with the standard 26 columns (A-Z), that would mean you can have 192,307 rows before hitting the limit. Obviously if you have a different number of columns or sheets, that number will change

Performance Issues

In addition to the cell limit, its also important to consider performance. Google Sheets can handle a spreadsheet with 5 million cells if these cells contain simple values, but as soon as you start adding formulas, formatting, etc, performance will start to take a hit and you may find yourself with a very slow spreadsheet long before you hit any limits imposed by Google.

If youre running into this issue, you may want to reduce the complexity of your spreadsheet. For example, reducing the use of complex chained formulas, custom functions, and conditional formatting can greatly help speed up a spreadsheet. Even simple cell formatting can slow down a large spreadsheet, so the simpler your spreadsheet is, the faster it will load and calculate.

Summary

In this tutorial, I covered how many rows can Google Sheets handle. Want more? Check out all the Google Sheets Tutorials.