Do you need to remove hyperlinks in your spreadsheet?

Whether it’s to enhance the readability of your content, maintain consistency in a report, or simply clean up your spreadsheet, knowing how to remove hyperlinks in Excel is a valuable skill.

Hyperlinks can be very useful in Excel, allowing you to link to websites, other documents, or different cells within your spreadsheet. However, there are times when you need to tidy up your data or eliminate these hyperlinks for various reasons.

I’ll explain various methods to accomplish this task in this comprehensive Excel tutorial. From simple manual techniques that anyone can use to more advanced solutions like using VBA macros and Office Scripts, I’ll cover a range of options to suit your specific needs.

Whether you’re dealing with a few hyperlinks or an extensive dataset containing URLs randomly, these methods will help you regain control over your Excel documents.

So, let’s dive in and discover the best ways to declutter your spreadsheets by removing hyperlinks in Excel.

What Are Hyperlinks in Excel?

Hyperlinks in Excel are clickable connections to websites, files, or other parts of your spreadsheet. They appear as text or shapes, and when clicked, they can quickly take you to a different location, like a web page or another cell within the same file.

Hyperlinks are useful for navigating and referencing information, but at times, you might want to remove them to maintain a cleaner or more controlled spreadsheet. The following are the major types of hyperlinking you can do in your Excel worksheet:

📒Read More: Pull Data From Another Sheet in Microsoft Excel

Reasons to Remove Hyperlinks in Excel

The primary reason to remove hyperlinks is the safety and security of your computer and data. Hackers can execute malicious codes on your computer by embedding hyperlinks in Excel files.

When you click a cell or cell range containing such hyperlinks, you could become a victim of ransomware attacks or data theft. Hence, if you’re downloading any third-party Excel worksheet from online sources, you must clear all the hyperlinks to make the workbook safe.

Some other major reasons to get rid of hyperlinks in Excel are as follows:

1. Eliminate unnecessary clutter and make your spreadsheet more organized by removing hyperlinks that may distract from core data.
2. Removing hyperlinks enhances the document’s readability by presenting information without underlined or colored text.
3. Maintain a consistent, professional appearance across your document, avoiding visual disruptions caused by hyperlinked text.
4. Eliminate the risk of unintentional hyperlink activation, especially in shared or presentation files.
5. Reduce the overall file size by removing hyperlinks, which may contain additional data or formatting.
6. Ensure that printed copies appear clean and professional without active hyperlinks.
7. In data analysis, hyperlinks can be distracting; removing them streamlines the process.

Right-Click to Remove Hyperlink in Excel

The most obvious method is the right-click menu that gives you the Remove Hyperlink option. You can apply this on one cell, a range of cells, or the whole worksheet. Here’s how:

1. Open the workbook containing the hyperlink you want to remove.
2. Place your mouse pointer over the cell and right-click on it.
3. This action will open a context menu.
4. Choose the Remove Hyperlink option from the context menu.
5. The hyperlink in the selected cell or cell range will be removed, leaving only the plain text or content.

Use a Shortcut Key to Remove Hyperlinks in Excel

If you love to navigate the Excel app with keyboard shortcuts, this is the perfect method for you to delete URLs from Excel cells. Follow these instructions on your worksheet:

1. Select a cell containing a hyperlink.
2. Press Ctrl + K on your keyboard to bring up the Edit Hyperlink dialog box.
3. There, click the Remove Link button.

The drawback of this method is it only works on one cell. So, if you’re removing a few hyperlinks from a small worksheet, this method is suitable.

Use the Link Command Button to Delete a Hyperlink

The Link command button inside the Links commands block of the Insert tab in the Excel ribbon menu is the actual Edit Hyperlink tool.

If you choose a cell range and click the Link command it shows the Edit Hyperlink window where you can click the Remove Link button to remove hyperlinks.

To get rid of links in a range of cells or the whole worksheet, just select the data containing hyperlinks and click the Link command button repeatedly.

Clear Formats to Delete Hyperlink in Excel

Clear Formats offers you a single-click solution to get rid of all hyperlinks in your Excel worksheet. However, you’ll also lose all other visual formatting applied to the selected cell, cell range, or the whole worksheet.

This button will remove the blue font and font underlining so the cell content looks clean. Here’s how it works:

1. Highlight a cell range that requires removing hyperlinks.
2. Click the Clear drop-down menu inside the Editing commands block.
3. Now, click Clear Formats to delete all hyperlinks including cell formatting.

Suppose you only want to remove hyperlinks but not the formatting. Then, click Clear Hyperlinks.

The Clear Hyperlinks option keeps the hyperlink formatting of the cells so someone might still think there are hyperlinks. But that’s just URL formatting, there aren’t any actual URLs.

Remove Hyperlink by Editing Its Function

Sometimes, Excel worksheets may come with hyperlinks embedded to cells or cell ranges via the HYPERLINK function. The methods to remove URLs mentioned so far aren’t effective to remove links from such cells.

In such situations, you need to edit the hardcoded function to get rid of the hyperlinks. Find below the steps you should try:

1. Launch Microsoft Excel and open the workbook containing the hyperlink you want to remove.
2. Locate the cell containing the hyperlink that you wish to remove.
3. Click on the cell with the hyperlink to activate it.
4. Look at the formula bar just above the spreadsheet.
5. In the formula bar, you will see the formula representing the hyperlink. It typically appears in this format:

=HYPERLINK("www.image.com",C2) 

or

=HYPERLINK("URL","Link Text")

6. Manually delete the hyperlink part, so only the desired text or content remains.
7. For example, if the formula is HYPERLINK("www.image.com",C2), remove the URL part and leave it as HYPERLINK("",C2)
8. After making the necessary edits in the formula bar, press the Enter key to save your changes.

Use Find and Replace and Remove Hyperlinks in Excel

Suppose you know the list of hyperlinks in the worksheet. Then, you can use the Find and Replace tool to find those select hyperlinks and replace them with blank spaces.

1. Open your Excel workbook.
2. Identify the range of cells or the specific column where you want to remove hyperlinks.
3. Press Ctrl + H. This keyboard shortcut opens the Find and Replace tool.
4. In the Find and Replace dialog, click on the Replace tab if it’s not already selected.
5. In the Find what field, enter the URL you want to remove.
6. For example, if the hyperlink is “https://www.image.com” you need to enter it exactly as hardcoded in the cells.
7. Leave the Replace with field blank.
8. Click on the Replace All button.
9. Review the summary of how many replacements were made.
10. Click OK to confirm.

This method is only good if you know the exact hyperlink you want to remove. If there are random URLs in the worksheet, this method won’t work.

Use the Hyperlink Command in Excel for Web

Removing one or many URLs from cells or cell ranges in Excel for the web app is pretty straightforward. You can use the Hyperlink command button inside the Links commands block of the Insert tab.

This method will only work if the hyperlinks were attached using the Edit Hyperlink dialog on Excel desktop or Excel on the web app.

Here’s how to use this trick:

1. Open your Excel worksheet on Excel for the web app.
2. Highlight one or multiple cells that contain hyperlinks.
3. Click the Insert tab and then click Hyperlink.
4. Click the Remove button on the Edit Hyperlink dialog box.
5. This action will remove all detectable hyperlinks instantly.

If someone added the URLs to worksheet data using any other methods like mailto: or HYPERLINK function, the trick won’t work.

Use Paste Special Command to Remove Hyperlink

Excel comes with the Paste Special tool so you can customize the content you’re pasting after copying it from another worksheet, workbook, or and external sources.

You can also remove hyperlinks from Excel worksheet using this tool. You may access it from the right-click menu or by pressing Ctrl + Alt + V hotkey.

Find below the instructions to use Paste Special:

1. Launch Excel desktop software and open the workbook containing the cell or range with hyperlinks.
2. Click on the cell or select the range that contains the hyperlinks you want to remove.
3. Right-click the selection and choose Copy from the context menu. Alternatively, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + C.
4. Choose the cell or range where you want to paste the copied content, which will remove the hyperlinks.
5. Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Alt + V to open the Paste Special dialog.
6. In the Paste Special dialog, select the Values option.
7. This will paste only the values from the copied cell, removing any formatting or hyperlinks.
8. Click the OK button to paste the values and remove hyperlinks.

By using this method, you also remove other cell formatting. So, use this method in cases where you afford to lose cell formatting. The method also works on Excel for the web app but through the right-click mode only. The keyboard shortcuts Ctrl + Alt + V won’t work in the online Excel app.

Use Excel VBA to Remove Hyperlink in Excel

When you need to remove hyperlinks frequently from large worksheets or workbooks containing many worksheets the best option is using an Excel VBA scripot.

This method lets you to automate the whole process. The only drawback is you need to create an Excel VBA macro that involves writing a few lines of code in VBA programming language.

Though experts of Excel and VBA can write such codes easily, it may be challenging for you if you’re new to Excel or Excel VBA. Find below a few straightforward VBA scripts that you just need to copy paste and your macros are ready.

Removes Hyperlinking But Keeps URLs

Suppose there are website addresses on your worksheet with active hyperlinking. Any single click on any cell will open the web browser and take you to the linked URL. Thus, navigating such worksheets could be challenging by novice Excel users.

In this scenario, you can use the following VBA script to remove the hyperlinking feature but keep the website addresses:

Sub RemoveHyperlinks()
    Dim Cell As Range
    Dim ws As Worksheet

    ' Replace "Sheet6" with the name of your specific sheet
    Set ws = ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet6")

    ' Specify the range you want to process (e.g., A2:A5)
    For Each Cell In ws.Range("A2:A5")
        ' Check if the cell contains hyperlinks
        If Cell.Hyperlinks.Count > 0 Then
            ' Delete the hyperlink while preserving the text
            Cell.Hyperlinks.Delete
        End If
    Next Cell
End Sub

Here’s how you can use this script on your own worksheet:

1. Press Alt + F11 to call the Excel VBA Editor.
2. Click Insert.
3. Select Module from the Insert menu.
4. Copy and paste the above script into the new module.
5. Customize the variables in the script as necessary, like "Sheet6" with your own worksheet name and "A2:A5" with the actual cell range that needs hyperlink removal.
6. Click the Save button on the Excel VBA Editor menu.

7. Click No on the warning box that pops up.

8. On the Save As dialog, click the Save as type drop-down and choose the Macro Enabled Workbook or XLSM option.
9. Click Save to save the file with the macro you just added.

To use the macro, press Alt + F8 and choose RemoveHyperlinks on the Macro dialog box. Click Run to get rid of hyperlinking.

Removes Hyperlinks But Keeps Anchor Text

If you want to delete all hyperlinks from a worksheet you can use this VBA script:

Sub RemoveAllHyperlinks()
    Dim ws As Worksheet
    Dim cell As Range

    ' Specify the worksheet where you want to remove hyperlinks (change "Sheet1" if needed)
    Set ws = ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1")

    ' Loop through each cell in the specified worksheet
    For Each cell In ws.UsedRange
        If cell.Hyperlinks.Count > 0 Then
            cell.Hyperlinks.Delete
        End If
    Next cell
End Sub

Use Office Scripts to Remove Hyperlink in Excel

Office Scripts is the latest automation tool added to the Excel for Microsoft 365 desktop and Excel for the web app. It allows advanced automation including adding actions and triggers on Microsoft Power Automate.

Find below the Office Scripts code you can use along with the steps to implement it:

1. Click the Automate tab on the Excel desktop or web app.
2. Click the New Script button inside the Scripting Tools dialog box.
3. Copy and paste the following script inside the Code Editor panel:

function main(workbook: ExcelScript.Workbook) {
	let selectedSheet = workbook.getActiveWorksheet();
	// Paste to range D1 on selectedSheet from range A1:B9 on selectedSheet
	selectedSheet.getRange("D1").copyFrom(selectedSheet.getRange("A1:B9"), ExcelScript.RangeCopyType.values, false, false);
	// Auto fit the columns of range D:D on selectedSheet
	selectedSheet.getRange("D:D").getFormat().autofitColumns();
}

4. Click the Save script button on Code Editor.
5. Now, click Run to remove all hyperlinks in the selected range automatically.

Here’s high you can customize the script:

• Change D1 to another cell where you want to get hyperlink-free cells.
• Change the cell range reference in this code element "A1:B9" to include your own dataset.
• Change the code element "D:D" with the destination column header like "E:E", "F:F", etc., to adjust the column span automatically.

Conclusions

So far, you’ve explored ten different ways to remove hyperlinks in Excel. These methods help you to secure your worksheets and make them look readable. Whether you prefer manual techniques or are ready to write a few lines of code, you now have the methods you need above.

Hyperlinks can be incredibly useful, but knowing how to manage and remove them when necessary is equally vital for maintaining the integrity and aesthetics of your Excel documents.

I hope these methods have been helpful in your Excel journey. If you have any questions, tips, or other methods to share, please feel free to leave your comments in the box below.