Hide and Unhide Rows
Rows disappear from a sheet in four different ways and only one of them is called hiding, which is why Unhide so often changes nothing. A filter removes rows and answers only to Data > Clear. An outline group folds them behind a + button in the left margin. A frozen pane can strand the top rows off-screen for good. Excel does say which you have, quietly: filtered row numbers turn blue, a collapsed group leaves a bracket in the gutter, and a frozen pane draws a thin dark line across the sheet. Read that first and the right command picks itself.
The formula
row numbers blue, funnel in a headera filter removed them — Data > Clearbracket and a + in the left gutteran outline group folded them — click the +thin dark line across the sheeta frozen pane; View > Freeze Panes > Unfreeze Panesrow numbers skip, everything blackgenuinely hidden — this is the one Unhide reversesUnhide greyed out in the menuthe sheet is protected; Review > Unprotect SheetA worked example
Rows 14 to 22 are missing from a 400-row sheet, and selecting rows 13 and 23 then choosing Unhide changes nothing at all.
Look at the colour of the row numbers that are still there, and at the column headers.
They are blue and one header carries a funnel, so a filter took those rows out and Unhide was never going to reach them — Data > Clear does. Had the numbers been black with a bracket beside them, it would have been an outline group and a single + would have reopened it. The diagnosis costs two seconds and decides which of four commands is the right one.
Which one do I need?
Frequently asked questions
Why won't Excel unhide my rows?
Almost always because they were never hidden. A filter takes rows out of view and only Data > Clear puts them back; an outline group folds them behind a + in the margin; a frozen pane can leave the top rows permanently off-screen. None of the three responds to Unhide, and each has its own one-click reversal. The fourth possibility is a protected sheet, where the command is greyed out rather than merely ineffective.
How do I tell a filtered row from a hidden one?
Look at the row numbers around the gap. Excel colours the numbers blue wherever a filter is active and leaves them black where rows were hidden by hand, and the filtered column carries a funnel icon on its header instead of the plain drop-down arrow. The status bar confirms it too, reading something like "24 of 400 records found" while a filter is on.
Can I hide rows based on a cell value?
Not with a formula — no worksheet function can change what is visible. Filtering the column on that value is the built-in answer and re-runs whenever you press Ctrl+Alt+L. Conditional formatting can grey the rows out but never removes them from view. Genuinely automatic hiding needs a macro setting Rows.Hidden from a Worksheet_Change event, which is real ongoing maintenance for something a filter usually covers.
The top of my sheet is missing when I open the file — where has it gone?
Press Ctrl+Home. On an ordinary sheet that returns you to A1 and the rows were simply scrolled out of view, because a workbook reopens wherever it was saved. If Ctrl+Home instead lands you on row 6 or thereabouts, the panes are frozen there and everything above the split is showing already — View > Freeze Panes > Unfreeze Panes gives the scroll bar back the whole sheet.
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