In Excel: select the whole rows by their row numbers, right-click the selection and choose Delete — the rows below shift up to close the gap; the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+Minus.
Click a row number and drag (or Ctrl-click each header) to select the whole rows you want to delete.
Right-click anywhere in the highlighted rows and choose Delete, or use Home ▸ Delete ▸ Delete Sheet Rows.
The rows are removed and everything below shifts up to close the gap.
For speed, select the row(s) and press Ctrl+Minus instead of right-clicking.
What this does
Deleting rows removes the selected rows entirely — their data is gone and everything below moves up to fill the space, so there is no empty gap left behind. You select whole rows by their row-number headers, then right-click ▸ Delete or use Home ▸ Delete ▸ Delete Sheet Rows. Ctrl+Minus does the same from the keyboard. To delete several rows that are not next to each other, hold Ctrl and click each row number first, then delete them all in one step. Because the rows physically disappear, any formula that pointed at a deleted row breaks with #REF!, so check totals that referenced the removed range. Most people learn this as a sequence of clicks and forget it by next week; learning it as a pattern instead is what lets you apply it to the next, slightly different version of the problem without starting from scratch. That is the difference this page is trying to make. Treat “excel delete rows with specific text” as a small repeatable workflow rather than a one-off click you hope to remember next time. Use a small test block before the live file, so any surprise in the affected rows shows up while it is still harmless. When this is a ribbon command, the selection matters more than the button: confirm the range, apply the command, then spot-check the output before saving. That turns a data step that keeps your analysis trustworthy into a method you can reuse, explain, and defend when the workbook leaves your screen.
A worked example
You want to drop rows 5, 6 and 7. Click row header 5 and drag down to row 7 to select all three whole rows, right-click anywhere in the selection and choose Delete — rows 5 to 7 vanish and the data that was in row 8 onward moves up to fill rows 5, 6, 7 and beyond. For a quick keyboard version, select the rows and press Ctrl+Minus. Deleting rows is how you clear out records you no longer need without leaving holes in the data — the sheet packs back together as the rows below move up. Unlike clearing cell contents, the rows physically go away, so the layout stays tight and continuous. A practical tip before you scale it up: build it once on a small block of test data, confirm the number against the tool on this page, and only then point it at your real sheet. That one habit catches almost every mistake while it is still cheap to fix, long before a wrong figure reaches a report or a colleague.
In Google Sheets
If you are in Google Sheets rather than Excel, the good news is that the formula shown here is identical and the workflow barely changes — menus sit across the top instead of in a ribbon, and a few function names differ slightly, but anything you build here moves across with little or no rework. Nothing on this page is behind a login: the tool runs entirely in your browser, the formula is shown in full with one-click copy, and the steps work the same on Windows and Mac. That is the whole promise here — the exact answer, a way to prove it on your own numbers, and just enough context to make it stick. Here is the takeaway for “excel delete rows with specific text”: copy the answer if you are busy, but if you have a spare few minutes, rebuild the example in Excel yourself with the tool above open beside it. That single pass — type it, run it, watch the result move when you change an input — is what turns a formula you found into a technique you trust. Keep your inputs labelled and referenced, never hard-coded, and the same sheet stays correct and auditable as it grows. Done that way, you will not need to look this up again, and you will be the person others ask.
Common mistakes
- Selecting cells instead of whole row numbers, which opens the Delete dialog asking how to shift the surrounding cells.
- Forgetting that deleting a row a formula points at throws
#REF!— check totals that referenced the removed range. - Pressing Delete (the key) expecting the rows to disappear — that only clears the contents; use right-click ▸ Delete or Ctrl+Minus to remove the rows themselves.
- Deleting scattered rows one by one instead of Ctrl-clicking every row number first and removing them in a single step.
Frequently asked questions
What is the shortcut to delete a row?
Select the whole row and press Ctrl+Minus (Ctrl and the - key). If you selected cells rather than a whole row, the same shortcut opens the Delete dialog so you can choose Entire row.
How do I delete several non-adjacent rows at once?
Hold Ctrl and click each row number you want, then right-click and Delete (or press Ctrl+Minus). All the selected rows are removed together and the remaining rows close up.
Why did my formulas break after deleting a row?
A formula that referenced a deleted row has nothing left to point at, so it returns #REF!. Rebuild the reference around the rows that remain, or delete inside the referenced range so it shrinks cleanly.
Other ways people ask this
People reach this page typing “how to delete rows with specific text in excel” and “how to delete specific rows in excel”, among other phrasings; whichever wording you used, the fix above is the one you want.
Why do people search for this in so many different ways?
Because the same task has many names. “how to delete rows with specific text in excel”, “how to delete specific rows in excel” all point at the one operation explained on this page, which is why they all lead here.