To hide a slide in PowerPoint, right-click the slide thumbnail in the left pane and select Hide Slide. The slide stays in your file, but it’s skipped when you present. A line through the slide number shows it’s hidden. To bring it back, right-click it and select Unhide Slide.
These steps come from Microsoft’s Hide or show a slide article. They work in PowerPoint for Microsoft 365, PowerPoint 2024, 2021, 2019, and 2016.
How to hide a slide in PowerPoint
- In the left pane, click the thumbnail of the slide you want to hide.
- Right-click the slide.
- Select Hide Slide.
To hide several slides at once, hold Ctrl (Command on a Mac) while you click each thumbnail, then right-click one of them and select Hide Slide.
How to unhide a slide
- In the left pane, click the hidden slide. It has a line through its number.
- Right-click it.
- Select Unhide Slide.
- While presenting, right-click the current slide.
- Select See All Slides.
- Click the hidden slide you want to show.
If you’re using Presenter View, your audience won’t see you pick the slide. They’ll just see it appear.
Why hide a slide instead of deleting it?
Hiding is handy for backup slides, extra details for a longer version of the talk, or answers to questions you think someone might ask. You keep everything in one file and decide what to show in the moment.
For more PowerPoint help, see our PowerPoint guides.
Related: how to set time for slides and how to rotate a slide in PowerPoint.
Matthew Burleigh has been writing tech tutorials since 2008. His writing has appeared on dozens of different websites and been read hundreds of millions of times.
After receiving his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science he spent several years working in IT management for small businesses. However, he now works full time writing content online and creating websites.
His main writing topics include iPhones, Microsoft Office, Google Apps, Android, and Photoshop, but he has also written about many other tech topics as well.