Excel Clear Contents, Formats, or Entire Cell Shortcut

Written by

Editorial Team

Reviewed by

Steve Rynearson

Last updated on October 19, 2023

This tutorial will demonstrate shortcuts to clear cells in Excel.

Clear Cells in Excel

There are several different ways to clear cells in Excel. We will review a few in this tutorial.

Clear Cells in Excel

Clear Cell Contents

Clear Cell contents removes the text within a cell.

Clear Cell Contents

  • The shortcut for this is pressing the DELETE button on your keyboard.
    PC Shortcut: Delete
    Mac Shortcut: fn+Delete

See the image below, for an example of clearing cell contents:

Delete Button to Clear Cell Contents

Clear Cell Formatting

To clear only cell formatting, use the shortcut:

PC Shortcut: ALT>H>E>F

Clear Cell Formatting

This will clear the formatting and leave the text, as shown below

 

Clear Cell Formatting Result

Clear All

  • To remove both formats and contents, select the cell and use the shortcut:
    PC Shortcut: ALT>H>E>A

Clear All

Clearing all will clear everything, as shown below.

Clear All Result