Sep
20

How remove multiple (all) hyperlinks from Excel worksheets at a time

by | updated on

In this short article, I'll show you how you can quickly remove all unwanted hyperlinks from an Excel worksheet at once and prevent their occurrence in the future. The solution works in all Excel versions starting from Excel 2003 through modern Excel 2016 and Excel 2019.

Remove multiple hyperlinks from Excel cells

Every time you type an e-mail address or URL in a cell, Excel automatically converts it into a clickable hyperlink. From my experience, this behavior is annoying rather than helpful :-(
So after typing a new email to my table or editing a URL and pressing Enter, I usually press Ctrl+Z to remove the hyperlink that Excel automatically created…

First I'll show how you can delete all accidently created unnecessary hyperlinks, and then how you can configure your Excel to turn off the Auto-Hyperlinking feature.

In Excel 2000-2007, there is no built-in function to delete multiple hyperlinks at a time, only one by one. Here is a simple trick that lets you overcome this limitation, of course, the trick works in Excel 2019, 2016, and 2013 too.

  • Select any empty cell outside your table.
  • Type 1 to this cell.
  • Copy this cell (Ctrl+C).
  • Select your columns with Hyperlinks: click on any cell with data in the 1st column and press Ctrl+Space to select the whole column:
    Press Ctrl+Space to select the whole column
  • If you want to select more than 1 column at a time: after selecting the 1s column, hold Ctrl, click on any cell in the 2nd column and press Space to select all cells in the 2nd column without losing selection in 1st column.
  • Right-click on any selected cells and select "Paste Special" from the context menu:
    Select 'Paste Special' from the context menu
  • In the "Paste Special" dialog box, select the "Multiply" radio button in the "Operation" section:
    Select the 'Multiply' radio button in the 'Operation' section
  • Click Ok. All hyperlinks are removed :-)
    All hyperlinks are removed from workshett

In Excel 2010, Microsoft finally added the ability to remove multiple hyperlinks at a time:

  • Select the entire column with Hyperlinks: click on any cell with data and press Ctrl+Space.
  • Right-click on any selected cell and select "Remove hyperlinks" from the context menu.
    Note: If you select a single cell, then this menu item changes to "Remove hyperlink", a nice example of usability :-(
    Remove hyperlinks in Excel context menu
  • All hyperlinks are removed from the column :-)
    All hyperlinks are removed from the column

Disable automatic creation of hyperlinks in Excel

  • In Excel 2007, click the Office button -> Excel Options.
    In Excel 2010 - 2019, navigate to the File Tab -> Options.
  • In the "Excel Options" dialog box, switch to the "Proofing" tab in the left column and click the "AutoCorrect Options" button:
    switch to the Proofing tab in the left column and click the AutoCorrect Options button
  • In the "AutoCorrect Options" dialog box, switch to the "AutoFormat As You Type" tab and uncheck the "Internet and network paths with hyperlinks" checkbox.
    Uncheck the Internet and network paths with hyperlinks checkbox
  • Click OK twice to close both dialogs and return to your Excel worksheet.

Now, type any URL or email to any cell - Excel retains the plain text format :-)
When you really need to create a hyperlink, simply press Ctrl+K to open the "Insert Hyperlink" dialog box.

You may also be interested in

79 comments to "How remove multiple (all) hyperlinks from Excel worksheets at a time"

  4. Mohan Mahadevan says:
    January 13, 2021 at 2:25 pm

    In Excel 2007, removing, hyperlinks in many cells or in a column does not work like the way mentioned here in this article ( atleast in my case); however, when I copied the entire row and pasted it in a notepad, and again copied and pasted back in excel as Text, there are no hyperlinks.

    Reply
  7. Paulo de Carvalho says:
    October 24, 2019 at 2:15 pm

    Hello,

    How do I delete a hyperlink that does not work?
    I have a hyperlink (in an Excel sheet) to a sheet that does nor exist.
    I go to connections in my excel sheet tool bar, open the EDIT CONNECTIONS and the link is there but despite the fact that I click on brake connection nothing happens and the link still remains.

    Thank you
    Paulo

    Reply
  12. Khan says:
    September 13, 2018 at 1:53 pm

    what should be the formula to get unit price from daily sales sheet to another sheet.
    I would very much appreciate for the help

    Reply
  19. irmar says:
    March 25, 2018 at 6:19 am

    I have Excel 2007.
    The only thing that works for me is cut paste into Notepad to clean formatting and then paste it again into Excel.

    Because I sometimes don't want to delete ALL hyperlinks from the sheet, only some.

    Reply
  20. Irritated says:
    March 18, 2018 at 12:44 am

    Insert a new, blank worksheet. Copy the entire worksheet cells that have those irritating hyperlinks (the hyperlinks in my Excel worksheet were the result of pasting from a table from a web page.) Then Paste Special and select Values.
    If I had Pasted Special - Values when I pasted the data from the web page I would have avoided the problem but now the hyperlinks on a web page are not always obvious.

    Reply
  22. Jerry says:
    February 7, 2018 at 9:56 pm

    One more tip. After doing the multiply trick under paste special any empty cells will now have zeros in them. That's not handy. However if you then press it will "undo" the multiplication, but leave all the hyperlinks as regular text.

    Reply
  23. Bill Harris says:
    November 8, 2017 at 7:47 am

    If you got 0 in all cells, you made another kind of mistake. The instructions given worked like a charm.

    In Excel 2003, a variation of his idea also worked for me:

    1. CTRL + A to "Select All"
    2. Right-click and select "Copy"
    3. Right-click and select "Paste"

    Reply
  25. Tony Oresteen says:
    August 25, 2017 at 9:57 pm

    To turn off creating hyperlinks as you type in Excel 2003 go to:

    Tools --> AutoCorrect Options --> Auto Format As You Type Tab

    unselect the check box for "Internet and network paths with hyperlinks"

    Now as you enter data in to Excel it will not create a hyperlink.

    Reply
  29. Janet Quintero says:
    April 18, 2017 at 12:38 pm

    This was an AWESOME fix! I'm preparing an Excel spreadsheet for an appeal mailing and wondered what I was going to do. Removing the hyperlinks individually would have taken a very long time. Thank you so much!

    Reply
  31. Chris Snyder says:
    January 25, 2017 at 5:46 pm

    THANK YOU! VERY annoying when selecting a cell and having it open a link. I used your "all versions" method and the first time with "multiply" it made Excel do a bunch of operations, flashing screen and crashed after about 10 seconds (I'd saved file before trying) and had to close Excel and restart. Not sure why.

    Instead of trying "paste multiply" a second time, I typed "1" into a cell, selected it to copy, then "paste special" using "add" and POOF - instantly cleared 50 hyperlinks. It reset the colored cell to white, but that was easy to fix.

    Again, THANK YOU - been dealing with this for years... never would have thought to try such a thing.

    Reply
  34. Addison says:
    November 16, 2016 at 12:39 pm

    This solution didn't work for me. A lot of the data I was trying to change was part numbers such as 00004587. The part number above was changed to the number 4,587.

    Reply
  39. Peggy says:
    July 20, 2016 at 4:21 pm

    Thank you! I was working on exported data in excel.....more than 3500 rows and two columns of all hyperlinks. This truly saved me as I prepare a board report!

    Reply
  43. VL says:
    January 29, 2016 at 7:47 am

    Thanks for saving my sanity. One additional point. Merged cells will prevent this from working. Unmerge, or don't highlight those cells, and the hyperlinks go away.

    Reply
  44. Ryan O' says:
    January 7, 2016 at 5:26 pm

    Craig Chamberlin, To get rid of all hyperlinked pictures just click on any single cell on the spread sheet, hit F5 and select [special] at the bottom left of the pop-up box. Next select objects and hit [OK]. This will select all of the pictures on the spreadsheet. Then just hit delete. NOTE: This will delete all pictures on the sheet, not just the hyperlinked ones.

    Reply
    • IrishJim says:
      March 25, 2021 at 9:08 pm

      This is the only way that worked for me.--Thanks Ryan!
      I ended up with a bunch of hyperlinks, that tended to multiply as I copied and moved stuff around. (probably because I had on the option "Cut, copy, and sort inserted objects with their parent cells".
      After a while they locked up Excel, sorting, two different versions.
      I'm hoping clearing them out helps my sorting not lock it up.

      Reply
  46. Craig Chamberlain says:
    December 14, 2015 at 7:06 am

    Ok, I have seen this 'multiply by 1' copy and paste-special trick, and even using a macro to remove all the hyperlinks, but when a picture is copied and pasted to an Excel (2007 at least) spreadsheet, it sits above the actual worksheet, (the picture or jpeg is not in a cell, but hovers above it, so the multiply trick won't work) and when I select it, I get a picture control boundary and controls for changing the size; I can move it and change the scale and size by pulling on the corners or middle of the sides, or right-click and get the menu that also has 'Remove hyperlink,' but I am not going to do that for each and every one of hundreds of little pictures that are all over the worksheet! If I try to click on a cell that is too close to the picture or miss the cell, then it takes me to the website and opens up Internet Explorer. I HATE THIS!! There HAS to be some way to remove ALL, and I mean ALL, of the hyperlinks in Excel!!

    Reply
  49. Abu Maryam says:
    October 19, 2015 at 5:51 am

    I've faced similar problem and found the solution.
    Click at the menu bar 'Formula', click 'Name Manager', highlight and delete all except "Print_Titles" & "Print_Area". Save it and try to re-open.

    Reply
  54. Doug says:
    April 17, 2015 at 10:48 pm

    I greatly appreciate your work in preparing the instructions, but have encountered a problem when exporting email addresses of my co-workers here at the Port of Oakland. How to I prevent the following from happening?

    E-mail field should export from Outlook 2010 Contacts to Excel 2010 as jmazza@portoakland.com, but it exports as the following:

    /o=ExchangeLabs/ou=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT)/cn=Recipients/cn=9892074eb14e447fa51f5af79c35c124-jmazza EX John Mazza
    Thank you. Doug

    Reply
  57. Roy Richardson says:
    March 16, 2015 at 3:18 pm

    I tried it. It didn't work. Excel 2007 is not treating hyperlinks as a format, so nothing that clears formatting is removing the hyper links.

    Reply
  62. Andy says:
    October 29, 2014 at 8:15 pm

    Thanks a million for the instructions. As long as I have used excel this has been a pain in my ass and it finally just did me in enough to seek help.

    Reply
  64. Jon Bright says:
    August 12, 2014 at 12:07 am

    The "Disable automatic creation of hyperlinks in Excel" tutorial was EXACTLY what I was looking for and, what is more important for a new user of Office 2013 as I am, this solution was easy to follow and worked. Thank you Alexander Frolov.

    Reply
  67. Wendy says:
    April 25, 2014 at 11:19 pm

    Thanks for posting this - you just save me a bunch of headaches from having to remove hyperlinks every time I typed an email address in Excel!

    Reply
  68. Purvil says:
    April 18, 2014 at 2:14 pm

    Well, I have tried this and it worked to and extent. But when double clicked on the cell where hyperlink was, it opens the link. So, It is never removed in real it just hides the underline and appears to be normal text.

    Any solutions on how to permanently remove it ?

    Reply
    • Alexander says:
      April 21, 2014 at 3:36 pm

      This is really strange since I covered removing hyperlinks and not changing the style in this article.
      What version of Excel do you have installed? And which solution did you use (general or specific for Excel 2010 and 2013)? If possible, please send me your workbook at alexander.frolov@ablebits.com

      Reply
  70. Jason says:
    March 28, 2014 at 11:26 am

    Also works - Save the file as a csv, then re-open it. All hyperlinks gone. Many other things gone, too - formatting, etc. - but if you're ok with that this works in one short step.

    Reply
  74. Rosie says:
    January 25, 2014 at 7:08 pm

    Thank you. It was very annoying having Outlook open every time I tried to update an email address in a spreadsheet. You've provided clear instructions that were easy to follow and they did what was expected and hoped for.

    Reply

Post a comment



Thank you for your comment! When posting a question, please be very clear and concise. This will help us provide a quick and relevant solution to your query. We cannot guarantee that we will answer every question, but we'll do our best :)