In Excel: check why they are hidden — rows collapsed to a tiny height need Home ▸ Format ▸ Row Height (e.g. 15); rows hidden by a filter need Data ▸ Clear; a collapsed outline needs the + button; a protected sheet needs Review ▸ Unprotect Sheet first.
On this page7
Look at the row numbers: blue numbers mean a filter is active — use Data ▸ Clear.
Look for + buttons or level numbers at the left edge — click + (or the highest level) to expand a collapsed group.
Select the rows on both sides of the gap and set Home ▸ Format ▸ Row Height to a normal value such as 15.
If Format and Unhide are greyed out, choose Review ▸ Unprotect Sheet first.
If the top rows are missing, check View ▸ Freeze Panes ▸ Unfreeze Panes, then type A1 in the Name Box and use Unhide Rows.
What this does
Unhide only reverses a manual Hide. Rows can disappear in other ways that Unhide does not touch: a row height set to a sliver looks hidden but is not, a filter hides rows that do not match its condition, an outline group collapses detail rows, and on a protected sheet the Format commands are disabled. Frozen panes can also keep the top rows scrolled out of reach. Identifying which of these applies is the whole fix. Most of these problems have a short list of causes. Check them in order, from the most common to the least, and stop at the first one that explains what you see. The difference between a quick fix and a sheet you can trust is the extra minute you spend validating “why can't i unhide rows in my excel spreadsheet”. Start on a copy or a tiny sample, keep the affected rows visible, and compare the result with the outcome you expected before you touch the real workbook. 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. The point is a workflow that saves repeating the same clicks every week, but the practical win is that someone else can open the file and understand what happened without asking you.
A worked example
Rows 10–14 are missing and Unhide Rows does nothing. The row headers jump from 9 to 15 with no double line, and the Data ▸ Filter button is not highlighted, so it is not a filter. Select rows 9 to 15, open Home ▸ Format ▸ Row Height, enter 15 and press OK — the five rows reappear, because someone had dragged their height down to almost zero rather than hiding them. Missing rows that will not come back usually hold data someone still needs. Knowing the handful of ways rows can vanish turns a frustrating dead end into a one-minute check. Change one thing at a time and re-check the symptom after each step, so you know which fix actually worked.
In Google Sheets
This is a command rather than a formula, so there is no syntax to carry over. Google Sheets arranges its commands in menus across the top instead of a ribbon, names some of them differently and does not have every Excel command — look for the equivalent in the Sheets menus or its help before assuming the steps match. Nothing on this page is behind a login or a download: the exact answer is at the top, and the detail below it is there for when you need it. That is the whole promise here — the answer first, and just enough context to make it stick. For “why can't i unhide rows in my excel spreadsheet”, work through it as symptom, cause, check: describe what happens, test the likely causes in order, and confirm the symptom is gone in Excel before moving on.
Common mistakes
- Repeating Unhide on rows that are filtered or grouped — it never affects those.
- Selecting only the rows next to the gap when the first row is hidden; use the Name Box or Ctrl+A instead.
- Missing that the sheet is protected, which disables the Format menu.
Frequently asked questions
Why do my rows stay hidden after Unhide?
They are probably not manually hidden: a filter, an outline group, or a very small row height produce the same gap. Clear the filter, expand the group, or set a row height.
How do I unhide rows on a protected sheet?
Unprotect it from the Review tab (with the password if one was set), unhide, then protect it again.
How can I tell a filter from hidden rows?
Filtered rows show blue row numbers and a funnel icon in the header cell; manually hidden rows show a double line between row numbers.
Other ways people ask this
On the way here you may have searched this as “why can't i insert a row in excel”, “why can't i unhide rows in excel”, “can't unhide columns in excel” and “why won't excel let me insert a row” — it is all the same task, and this page is the single, complete answer to it.
Why do people search for this in so many different ways?
Because the same task has many names. “why can't i insert a row in excel”, “why can't i unhide rows in excel”, “can't unhide columns in excel” all point at the one operation explained on this page, which is why they all lead here.