Docs · guide

How to unhide columns in Google Sheets, including the first one

By Alberto Gulotta · Updated 5 September 2026 · 8 min read

A hidden column in Google Sheets is not really hidden: it leaves a mark, and the mark is the way back. That single design choice is the whole difference between this job here and the same job in Excel, where a hidden column leaves a hint and the way back is a procedure.

An indicator, or a control

Both companies document what a hidden column looks like. They are not the same kind of thing.

Microsoft Excel

“The double line between two columns is an indicator that you’ve hidden a column.”

Microsoft Support, read 22 August 2026

Google Sheets

“An arrow will appear over the hidden row or column.” To bring it back, “click the arrow where the row number or column letter used to be.”

Google Docs Editors Help, read 28 August 2026

One is a sign you have to notice; the other is a button you press. In Excel the double line tells you something is missing and the fix is a separate procedure — select the columns on either side, right-click the lettered strip, Unhide. In Sheets the mark and the fix are the same object.

HideClick a row number or column letter to highlight it, right-click, then Hide row or Hide column.

Several at onceGoogle: hold the command key and click the rows or columns you want, then hide them together.

Show againClick the arrow where the number or letter used to be. No selection, no menu, no procedure.

Three operations, and the third is the one worth remembering because it removes a whole class of problem. There is no selecting the columns either side, no hunting for the right strip to right-click, and no separate command that might not be in the menu. The arrow is where the column was, and it is a control.

And the case that has its own search demand. Column A in Excel is the one people get stuck on: Microsoft gives it separate instructions and calls it “a little tricky to unhide”, because there is no column to its left to select — the geometry of the ordinary method does not work there. The Excel guide is largely about that one column.

Google’s instructions do not have a first-column case. The arrow appears where the letter used to be, and column A has a place where its letter used to be like every other column. This guide says what Google publishes and no more: there is no special procedure in the documentation, which is not the same as a promise that nothing else can go wrong.

It is worth being precise about what that comparison does and does not say. It is not that Sheets is better at spreadsheets: it is that on this one job the two programs made different design decisions, and Excel’s produces a documented special case while Google’s does not appear to. If you spend your week in Excel, the thing to carry across is not a method — it is that the mark on the screen is clickable here, so the first move is to click it rather than to go looking for a menu.

The neighbours on the same menu are worth knowing about. Google documents freezing, grouping, hiding and merging on one page, and grouping is the one people reach for when they meant hiding.

Hidden rows are gone from view and give no summary. Grouped rows collapse behind a plus or minus — Google: “to expand or collapse grouped rows or columns, next to the rows or columns, click Plus (+) or Minus (−)” — so the sheet stays navigable and anybody can open the detail without knowing the trick. On a spreadsheet somebody else will read, grouping is almost always the better choice.

A drawn table comparing hidden and grouped columns in Google Sheets and what a reader sees — Quotations from Google; the last row is ours. Figure drawn by AI Tools Primer.

One last difference, for anybody arriving from Excel. In Excel, unhiding everything at once is a real command — select the whole sheet, Home › Cells › Format › Hide & Unhide › Unhide Columns — with Microsoft’s own caveat that it “displays all hidden rows and columns in your worksheet, which you may not want to do”. Google publishes no equivalent single command: the documented route is the arrow, one place at a time. On a sheet with three hidden ranges that is three clicks, and each one is a decision rather than a sweep.

Where to start

Four ways in. The first one is usually the whole answer.

“A column is missing.”: Click the arrow — the three operations
“I came here from Excel.”: Start at an indicator or a control
“It is the first column.”: That is the first column
“I want it collapsible, not gone.”: Read hiding or grouping

An indicator or a control

What each program leaves behind when a column goes, and why that decides the procedure.

The same job in ExcelThe double line, the right-click on the lettered strip, and the column that needs its own method.Open this guide → Hidden rows in ExcelThe same geometry one axis over, where the tell is easier to see.Open this guide →

The three operations

Hide one, hide several, bring them back. The third has no procedure.

Freezing instead of hidingKeeping a header in view, which is what people often want when they hide.Open this guide → Protecting the sheetStopping somebody from unhiding what you meant to keep out of the way.Open this guide →

The first column

Excel’s special case, and what Google’s documentation says about it — which is nothing.

Column A in ExcelWhy the ordinary method cannot work there, in one sentence of geometry.Open this guide →

Hiding or grouping

Two ways to get a column out of the way, and only one of them tells the next reader it exists.

Summarising insteadWhen the reason for hiding columns is that the sheet is too wide to read.Open this guide → Cleaning the data firstOften the columns are not the problem: the rows are.Open this guide →

Not covered here. It will not tell you Sheets is better. On this one job the two design decisions differ, and one of them produces a documented special case.

It will not promise there is no first-column problem in Sheets. Google does not document one, and this guide says that rather than turning an absence into a guarantee.

And it will not recommend hiding on a shared sheet. Grouping leaves a control the next reader can find; hiding leaves an arrow they have to notice. What holds instead is simple: the arrow that marks a hidden row or column and the click that restores it, the command-key route for several at once, and the plus and minus that expand grouped rows are quoted from Google’s own Docs Editors help, and the double-line indicator and the all-at-once caveat from Microsoft’s, listed below with the dates they were read.

The same spreadsheet job, in the other program

You know how it works in one of them. This is where the other one does it differently — and where the difference is written down by the company that made it.

The same job, in the other places it comes up: How to sort in Google Sheets, and who else sees your filter; How to remove duplicates in Google Sheets, and what counts as one; How to make a drop down list in Google Sheets, and where Excel stops; How to lock cells in Google Sheets, and what it will not do; How to create a pivot table in Google Sheets, and what it does alone; How to make a drop down list in Excel, and make it hold; How to alphabetize in Excel, without scrambling your rows

Sources

Google Docs Editors Help — Freeze, group, hide, or merge rows & columns (the right-click route to Hide row and Hide column; that multiple rows or columns are selected by holding the command key; that an arrow appears over the hidden row or column and that clicking the arrow where the number or letter used to be restores it; and the plus and minus controls that expand or collapse grouped rows and columns) — support.google.com, read 28 August 2026.
Microsoft Support — Hide or show columns and rows (that the double line between two columns indicates a hidden column, that column A is a little tricky to unhide, and the caveat that unhiding everything displays all hidden rows and columns which you may not want) — quoted here for the comparison and in full on the Excel guide — support.microsoft.com, read 22 August 2026.
Microsoft Support — Unhide the first column or row in a worksheet (that the first column or row is a little tricky to unhide, and that unhiding everything displays all hidden rows and columns in your worksheet, which you may not want to do) — quoted here for the comparison and in full on the Excel guide — support.microsoft.com, read 22 August 2026.

Written by Alberto Gulotta

Founder and editor of AI Tools Primer, writing from Palermo, Italy. Thirty-five years of taking computers apart, starting with a Commodore 64 — the long version is on the about page.

Something wrong on this page? Write to aitoolsprimer@gmail.com and it gets fixed.

Written on 28 August 2026 · last checked 5 September 2026.

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