by 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 2021 and desktop Excel included in Microsoft 365.
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.
Remove multiple hyperlinks in all Excel versions
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:
- 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:
- In the "Paste Special" dialog box, select the "Multiply" radio button in the "Operation" section:
- Click Ok. All hyperlinks are removed :-)
How to delete all hyperlinks in 2 clicks (Excel 2021 – 2010)
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 :-(
- 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:
- In the "AutoCorrect Options" dialog box, switch to the "AutoFormat As You Type" tab and 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.
81 comments
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
Works like a charm. Thanks a million!!
thanks. its working good.
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.
非常有用.已进行设置.感谢!
thanks
Thanks
For Mac users of Excel, go to Insert, Hyperlink, email address, remove link. I use Excel 2011.
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.
Thanks for this but I'm not getting any hyperlink option on right click and I was before. Using Excel 2013
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.
Thank you for your feedback, Jon. We appreciate it and always ready to help :)
Thank you. This works great!!
thanks!
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!
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 ?
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
Thank you!
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.
That was SO MUCH EASIER than trying macros. I highlighted the entire column but didn't have a "Remove Hyperlinks" option.
thanks
thanks... :D
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.