How to Remove Shortcuts (Hyperlinks) from Your Excel Files?

If you have an Excel spreadsheet that contains a shortcut or link to another file, you may want to remove that shortcut at some point. Shortcuts in Excel are represented by a small arrow icon in the lower-left corner of a cell. They allow you to quickly jump to another location in the same workbook or even open a different file. However, shortcuts can sometimes cause issues or may no longer be needed. In this article, we’ll show you step-by-step how to easily remove shortcuts from your Excel files.

What are Excel Hyperlinks (Shortcuts)?

Before we get into the process of removing shortcuts, let’s briefly explain what they are:

• A shortcut (also known as a hyperlink) in Excel is a link from one cell to another location.
• This location can be a cell or range in the same worksheet, a different worksheet, or even an external file or web page.
• Shortcuts appear as blue underlined text by default. Hovering your cursor over them shows a screen tip with the full link path.
• Clicking a shortcut will jump your cursor to the linked location or open the linked file/URL.

While shortcuts can be very useful for quickly navigating a complex workbook, there are a few reasons you might want to remove them:

• The linked file has been deleted or moved
• The shortcut is no longer relevant
• You want to clean up the appearance of the spreadsheet
• The shortcut is causing issues when trying to use or share the file

Method 1: Remove a Single Shortcut

Here are the steps to remove an individual shortcut from a specific cell:

1. Select the cell containing the shortcut you want to delete
2. Right-click the cell and choose “Remove Hyperlink” from the popup menu
3. The blue underline will disappear and the text will change to the default color/style, indicating the shortcut has been removed

Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+K (Windows) or Cmd+K (Mac) to open the Edit Hyperlink dialog box. Then simply click the “Remove Link” button.

That’s all it takes to manually remove a single shortcut! However, if your spreadsheet contains many shortcuts, removing them one-by-one can be tedious. In the next section we’ll cover some methods to delete multiple shortcuts at once.

Method 2: Remove All Shortcuts on the Current Worksheet

To quickly remove all the shortcuts/hyperlinks on the entire active worksheet:

1. Press Ctrl+A (Windows) or Cmd+A (Mac) to select all cells on the sheet
2. Right-click any of the selected cells
3. Choose “Remove Hyperlinks” from the context menu

All the shortcuts on that worksheet will instantly be deleted. The text formatting will revert to the default style.

Note that this method only removes shortcuts on the current sheet you are viewing. Other worksheets in the same Excel file will be unaffected. To remove shortcuts on other sheets, you’ll need to navigate to each sheet and repeat the process above.

Quickly Remove Hyperlinks via the Ribbon

You can also access the Remove Hyperlinks command directly from the Excel Ribbon interface:

1. Go to the Home tab
2. Look in the Editing section on the far right and click the Clear button (represented by an eraser icon)
3. Choose Remove Hyperlinks from the dropdown menu

The benefit of using this menu is it gives you a clear visual confirmation of what action you are about to perform.

Method 3: Remove Shortcuts from the Entire Workbook

What if you need to delete all shortcuts from every worksheet in the workbook? You can use Excel’s Find and Replace tool to accomplish this:

1. Press Ctrl+H (Windows) or Cmd+H (Mac) to open the Find and Replace dialog box
2. Click the Options button to expand the dialog box and show more settings
3. Leave the Find What field blank
4. Click the Format button, then choose Font from the popup menu
5. In the Font dialog box, select Blue for the Color and Underline for the Underline style, then click OK
6. Leave the Replace with field blank, then click the Format button again
7. In the Font dialog box, select Automatic for the Color and (none) for the Underline style, then click OK
8. Click Replace All

Excel will find all blue underlined text (i.e. hyperlinks) in the entire workbook and replace them with plain unformatted text, effectively deleting all the shortcuts.

Be careful when using Replace All, as this cannot be undone! Make sure you only have the workbook open that you want to remove shortcuts from.

Method 4: Use a VBA Macro to Remove Shortcuts

For advanced Excel users comfortable with macros, you can automate the shortcut removal process using some simple VBA code. This is useful if you frequently need to strip hyperlinks from workbooks.

1. Press Alt+F11 to open the Visual Basic Editor
2. In the Project pane on the left, right-click the workbook name and choose Insert > Module
3. Paste the following macro code into the Module window:

Sub RemoveAllHyperlinks()
    Dim ws As Worksheet
    For Each ws In ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets
        ws.Hyperlinks.Delete
    Next ws
End Sub

1. Press Alt+Q to close the Visual Basic Editor
2. Back in Excel, press Alt+F8 to view the Macro dialog box
3. Select the RemoveAllHyperlinks macro and click Run

The macro will loop through each worksheet in the active workbook and delete any hyperlinks it finds. The beauty of this approach is you can assign the macro to a button so deleting shortcuts is always just a single click away.

Note: If you frequently use this macro, consider saving the workbook as an Excel Macro-Enabled Template (XLTM) so the VBA code is always available.

Preventing Accidental Shortcut Creation

Now that you know several ways to remove unwanted shortcuts from your Excel spreadsheets, let’s briefly discuss how to avoid creating them unintentionally in the first place. The most common way this happens is by typing or pasting text that Excel recognizes as a valid link, such as:

• Web page URLs
• Network file paths (e.g. \server\folder\file.xlsx)
• Email addresses

By default, Excel automatically formats these as live hyperlinks. But you can disable this behavior:

1. Go to the File menu and click Options
2. Select Proofing on the left
3. Click the AutoCorrect Options… button
4. Switch to the AutoFormat As You Type tab
5. Uncheck the boxes for “Internet and network paths with hyperlinks” and “E-mail addresses with hyperlinks“
6. Click OK twice to close both dialog boxes

With those settings turned off, you’ll have to intentionally insert hyperlinks going forward by using the Link button on the Insert tab. This greatly reduces the chances of shortcuts popping up in your spreadsheets when you don’t want them.

Final Thoughts

Excel cell shortcuts, while handy in certain situations, can often be more trouble than they’re worth. Hopefully this article has armed you with several methods to quickly remove individual shortcuts, delete all hyperlinks from a worksheet or workbook, and even prevent shortcuts from being created in the first place.

Whether you prefer manual cleanup via the ribbon, automated removal with a Find and Replace or VBA macro, or proactive prevention by tweaking AutoFormat settings, you now have the tools and knowledge you need to keep your Excel files shortcut-free!

FAQs

Vaishvi Desai

Vaishvi Desai is the founder of Excelsamurai and a passionate Excel enthusiast with years of experience in data analysis and spreadsheet management. With a mission to help others harness the power of Excel, Vaishvi shares her expertise through concise, easy-to-follow tutorials on shortcuts, formulas, Pivot Tables, and VBA.