How to get rid of extra columns in Excel

You can watch a video tutorial here.

When you have a large worksheet with many columns, you may want to get rid of the columns that you do not need to make the worksheet more manageable.  Also, when you are using data imported from another application, sometimes distant columns have junk values. These can affect the work that you are doing so you may want to delete all the columns to be sure that the sheet is clean. In Excel, you can either delete only the columns that have data or all the columns.

Option 1 – Delete columns with data

Step 1 – Select the first column

• Select the column after which you want all the following columns to be deleted

Step 2 – Select the rest of the columns containing data

• Hold down the Ctrl+Shift keys and press the right-arrow once
• The columns up to the end of the data are selected

Step 3 – Delete the columns

• Right-click and select Delete from the context menu

Step 4 – Check the result

• All the columns with data after and including the selected column are deleted

Option 2 – Select all columns

Step 1 – Select the first column

• Select the column after which you want all the following columns to be deleted

Step 2 – Select the rest of the columns containing data

• Hold down the Ctrl+Shift keys and press the right-arrow once
• The columns up to the end of the data are selected

Step 3 – Select the rest of the columns

• Press the right arrow again to select columns till the end of the sheet

Step 4 – Delete the columns

• Right-click and select Delete from the context menu

Step 5 – Check the result

• All the columns after and including the selected column are deleted