Hide/Unhide Scroll Bars and Reset the Vertical Slider Range in Excel

This article explains how to hide and reset the Excel scroll bars. Instructions apply to Excel for Microsoft 365, Excel 2019, Excel 2016, Excel 2013, and Excel 2010.

Hide and View Scroll Bars

By default, Excel displays horizontal and vertical scroll bars along the bottom and right side of the Excel screen, but you can hide them from view. If you want to increase the viewing area of the worksheet, hide the horizontal and vertical scroll bars.

1. Go to the File tab.

2. Select Options.

3. In the Excel Options dialog box, select Advanced.

4. Scroll down to the Display options for this workbook section (about halfway down).

5. To hide the horizontal scroll bar, clear the Show horizontal scroll bar check box.

6. To hide the vertical scroll bar, clear the Show vertical scroll bar check box.

   To show a hidden scroll bar, select the Show horizontal scroll bar check box or select the Show vertical scroll bar check box.

7. Select OK to close the dialog box and return to the worksheet.

Resize the Horizontal Scroll Bar

If the number of sheets in a workbook increases to the point that the names of all sheets cannot be read at one time, one way to fix this is to shrink the size of the horizontal scroll bar.

1. Place the mouse pointer over the vertical ellipsis (three vertical dots) next to the horizontal scroll bar.

2. The mouse pointer changes to a double-headed arrow.

3. Drag to the right to shrink the horizontal scroll bar or drag to the left to enlarge the scroll bar.

Fix the Vertical Scroll Bar Slider Range

The slider in the vertical scroll bar—the box that moves up and down the scroll bar—changes in size as the number of rows in a worksheet containing data changes. As the number of rows increases, the size of the slider decreases.

If a worksheet has a small number of rows containing data, but the slider is very small and moving it causes the worksheet to jump up or down hundreds of rows, a row or a cell far down the worksheet may have been activated. To fix the problem, find and delete the row containing the last activated cell.

Find the Last Active Row

To find the last row in the worksheet containing a cell that has been activated:

1. Back up the workbook.

   Later steps involve deleting rows in the worksheet. If rows that contain good data are accidentally deleted, the easiest way to get them back is to have a backup copy.

2. Press the Ctrl+Home keys to move to cell A1 in the worksheet.

3. Press the Ctrl+End keys to move to the last cell in the worksheet. This cell is the intersection point between the lowest activated row and the rightmost activated column.

Delete the Last Active Row

Since you can't be sure that other rows have not been activated between the last row of good data and the last activated row, delete all rows below your data and the last activated row.

1. Highlight the rows to delete. Select the row header with the mouse or press the Shift+Space keys on the keyboard.

2. Right-click the row header of one of the selected rows to open the context menu.

3. Select Delete to delete the selected rows.

Check Before You Delete

Before deleting any rows, make certain that the last row of valuable data is the last row of valuable data, especially if the workbook is used by more than one person. It is not uncommon to hide data in a workbook, so do a thorough search before deleting any data.

Save the Workbook

After the rows are deleted, save the workbook. Until the workbook is saved, there will be no change in the size and behavior of the slider in the scroll bar.