There is a large assortment of formatting options that you can apply to a cell in Google Sheets. Some of these formatting options are easy to find and edit, but others may be a little tougher to track down. For example, many of them can be added and removed in the same way, such as with strikethrough in this tutorial. If you discover that there is a lot of formatting options applied to a cell and you need to remove all of them, then it can become a lengthy task.

Fortunately Google Sheets provides you with the ability to simply clear all of the formatting from a selection at once instead. This “Clear formatting” option can be very helpful when you need it, so continue reading below to see how to use it in Google Sheets.

You can use a similar option for documents, too. Our article on how to clear formatting in Google Docs will show you the steps in that application.

How to Remove All of the Formatting in a Cell in Google Sheets

The steps in this article were performed in the Web browser version of Google Sheets. Completing the actions in this guide will remove all of the formatting from the cells that you select.

Step 1: Go to your Google Drive at https://drive.google.com/drive/my-drive and open the spreadsheet containing the cells that you would like to clear of formatting.

Step 2: Select the cells from which you would like to remove the formatting.

Step 3: Click the Format tab at the top of the window.

Step 4: Click the Clear formatting option at the bottom of the menu.

how to clear formatting in google sheets

Do you often work in Microsoft Excel and finding yourself in situations where you would like to clear formatting in that program as well? Find out how to clear formatting in Excel 2010 to get rid of formatting options that are difficult or time-consuming to remove individually.