Written by Jake Sheridan
In this tutorial, you will learn how to remove conditional formatting in Google Sheets.
Why Remove Conditional Formatting in Google Sheets?
When collaborating on Google Sheets created or modified by others, you may sometimes come across cells that are colored in an undesirable or illogical way.
In some cases, you can simply use the text and fill color options in the toolbar to update the cell formatting. However, you may find that the colors remain the same no matter how you format the cell.
This is because of a conditional formatting rule applied to that cell, and it is necessary to remove it before you can see a different formatting for that cell.
Conditional formatting is a way to format cells based on their content or the content of other cells.
It is useful for highlighting cells that reach a certain value, such as low stock items or excessive expenses in a budget category, but it can easily become outdated and cause confusion.
How to Identify Cells with Conditional Formatting?
You can recognize cells with applied conditional formatting by looking at the text and fill color options in the toolbar.
If the selected cell or range has conditional formatting applied to it, the colored line below these icons will consist of two thin lines instead of one thick line.
Here’s what it looks like without conditional formatting:
And here’s what it looks like with conditional formatting:
How to Remove Conditional Formatting?
To remove conditional formatting from a single cell or range, follow these steps:
Step 1
Select the cell or range from which you want to remove conditional formatting.
Step 2
Open the Format menu, then click on the Conditional formatting option.
Step 3
The Conditional formatting rules pane will open, displaying all the conditional formatting rules applied to the selected range.
Step 4
Hover over the conditional formatting rule you want to remove, and a trash icon will appear. Click on it to delete the rule.
Step 5
Repeat Step 4 if necessary to remove any unnecessary conditional formatting rules applied to the cell or range.
Note that conditional formatting rules can apply to any number or size of ranges, so it’s best to check which ranges a conditional formatting rule applies to before deleting it, as it may still be useful elsewhere in the spreadsheet.
Conclusion
In this tutorial, you have learned how to remove conditional formatting in Google Sheets. Want to learn more? Check out all the Google Sheets tutorials on Crawlan.com.
