If you lost a worksheet or cannot find the worksheet tabs section in your workbook, fear not! In this guide, we're going to show you how to unhide sheets and various methods to restore disappeared worksheet tabs.
Unhide Sheets in Excel
Excel allows hiding worksheets. This feature comes in handy when you want to hide calculations or data to simplify your Excel model. You can easily unhide sheets in Excel if the workbook is not protected. Otherwise, you need to unprotect the workbook to perform structural updates on the workbook. Here are the steps:
- Right click on any visible tab on the worksheet > click Unhide
- Then in the Unhide dialog box > click sheet you want to unhide
- Click OK
If the unhide sheet is disabled, this means that there are no hidden worksheet within the workbook. If you come across with this scenario frequently for more than one worksheet, you can use a VBA macro to speed things up. See How to unhide sheets in Excel with VBA for doing this quickly using VBA.
The Sheets Tab
If the worksheets tab is hidden, you need to go to the Options window. To make the tab section visible, follow the steps:
- In the Ribbon, click File > Options to open the Excel Options window
- Click on Advance
- Locate the section Display options for this workbook (make sure that your workbook is selected in the dropdown)
- Check the Show sheet tabs option
- Click OK
Windows Arrangement (2010 and earlier)
The older versions of Excel open workbooks in "inner windows" under a main application window. Windows may be arranged in a way that you cannot see the worksheets tab.
If you're using an Excel version that is older than 2013 and neither of the first two methods didn't work, try to Maximize the window of the workbook. If there are multiple workbooks open, you can open find the one you're looking for in the Switch Windows list from the View tab of the Ribbon.
