How to Delete Every Other Column in Excel & Google Sheets

Written by

Mel Jenkins

Reviewed by

Laura Tsitlidze

Last updated on December 7, 2022

This tutorial demonstrates how to delete every other column in Excel and Google Sheets.

delete every other column start

Sort and Delete Every Other Column

For worksheets with many columns, it may be best to sort the columns horizontally with a helper row.

Right-click on the row number in the top row of the data and select Insert to insert a new row above the data.

delete every other column insert row

In the cell just above the first column of data, type TRUE. Then in the second column, type FALSE.

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Highlight the TRUE and FALSE cells, and drag them across to the last column with data.

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Release the mouse to copy TRUE and FALSE across the columns.

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Use the mouse to highlight the data and then in the Ribbon, select Home > Editing > Sort & Filter > Custom Sort.

delete every other column custom sort

Click Options.

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Select Sort left to right, and then click OK.

delete every other column left to right

In the Row: Sort by drop-down list, select Row 2.

delete every other column sort row

In the Order drop-down list, select Smallest to Largest and click OK.

delete every other column smallest largest

All the FALSE columns are now sorted to the left, while all the TRUE columns are sorted to the right.

delete every other column false sort

Select the columns that are not needed.

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In the Ribbon, select Home > Cells > Delete > Delete Sheet Columns to remove the columns.

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Delete the extra row (added in Step 1) to remove the remaining TRUEs and FALSEs.

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Select and Delete Every Other Column

If you do not have a large number of columns, you can delete every other (or every n^th) column by selection.

Click on the column header of the first column to select the column.

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Holding down the CTRL key on the keyboard, click on the column header of each column to be deleted.

delete every other column multiple select

Right-click on one of the column headers and select Delete.

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The columns are removed from the worksheet.

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Deleting every other column in Excel can also be achieved by creating a macro using VBA.

Delete Every Other Column in Google Sheets

You can delete every other column in Google Sheets in exactly the same way as is done in Excel above.

delete every other column gs