How to Merge Cells in Excel

To merge cells in Excel, select the cells, open the Home tab, click the arrow next to Merge & Center, and choose Merge & Center, Merge Across, or Merge Cells. Excel keeps only the value in the upper-left cell and deletes the rest, so move or combine any other data first. These steps apply to Excel for Microsoft 365, Excel 2024, 2021, 2019 and 2016 on Windows and Mac, and to Excel for the web.

The steps and the data warning come from Microsoft’s Merge and unmerge cells in Excel support article.

Read This First: Only One Value Survives

Microsoft’s wording is direct. When you merge several cells, only the contents of the upper-left cell appear in the merged cell. The contents of the other cells are deleted. In a right-to-left language, the upper-right cell is the one that is kept.

Unmerging later does not bring that data back. So before you merge:

• Check every cell in the selection for text, numbers, or formulas.
• Move anything you need to another cell, or join it into one cell with a formula. The section on merging without losing data, below, shows how.
• If you only want a title centered over several columns, consider Center Across Selection instead. It does not merge anything.

If you merge by mistake, press Ctrl+Z (Command+Z on a Mac) right away to undo it.

What You Need

• Cells that sit next to each other in one rectangular block. You cannot merge cells that are scattered around the sheet.
• A normal range. Cells inside an Excel table cannot be merged.
• A sheet you are allowed to format. Protected sheets and legacy shared workbooks block merging.

How to Merge Cells in Excel

1. Select the cells you want to merge. Drag across them, or click the first cell and Shift-click the last one. The selection should be one block.
2. Click the Home tab. Look in the Alignment group for the Merge & Center button.
3. Click the arrow next to Merge & Center. A short menu opens. Clicking the button itself, rather than the arrow, applies Merge & Center straight away.
4. Choose a merge option. Pick Merge & Center, Merge Across, or Merge Cells. The next section explains each one.
5. Confirm the warning if you see one. When more than one of the selected cells holds data, the desktop app normally warns you that only the upper-left value will be kept. Select OK to continue or Cancel to go back.

The selected cells now act as one large cell. Its address is the address of the upper-left cell. You can change how the text sits inside it with the alignment buttons on the Home tab.

The Four Options on the Merge Menu

Option	What it does	Good for
Merge & Center	Turns the whole selection into one cell and centers the content.	A title above a table.
Merge Across	Merges the cells in each selected row separately. Three selected rows become three wide cells, not one.	Several label rows that each need to span the same columns.
Merge Cells	Turns the whole selection into one cell and leaves the alignment as it was.	A wide cell with left-aligned text.
Unmerge Cells	Splits a merged cell back into its original cells.	Undoing a merge.

Merge Across only works side to side. To merge cells down a column, use Merge & Center or Merge Cells.

How to Unmerge Cells

1. Select the merged cell.
2. On the Home tab, click the arrow next to Merge & Center.
3. Select Unmerge Cells.

The cell splits back into separate cells. The content stays in the upper-left cell and the others are empty. Microsoft notes that you cannot split a cell that was never merged. If you want to break one cell’s text into several columns, see our guide on how to split a cell in Excel.

Find merged cells you forgot about

Microsoft suggests using the Find command when you do not remember where the merged cells are. In Excel for Windows:

1. On the Home tab, select Find & Select > Find.
2. Select Options, then Format.
3. On the Alignment tab, check Merge cells and select OK.
4. Select Find All. Excel lists every merged cell on the sheet.

Microsoft covers this in its Find merged cells article. Button names in the Find dialog can differ slightly on a Mac.

Center Across Selection: The Look of a Merge Without Merging

Center Across Selection centers text over several columns but leaves every cell separate. Nothing is deleted, and sorting, filtering, and selecting a single column keep working. It is the safer choice for a heading above a data range.

1. Type your text in the leftmost cell. Leave the cells to its right empty.
2. Select that cell and the empty cells you want the text to span. They must be in the same row.
3. Open Format Cells. Press Ctrl+1 on Windows or Command+1 on a Mac.
4. Click the Alignment tab.
5. Open the Horizontal list and choose Center Across Selection.
6. Select OK. The text appears centered across the selected cells.

Two limits to know. It only works across a row, not down a column. And it is a desktop feature: Excel for the web does not currently offer Center Across Selection. In the browser, the closest substitute is Merge Across followed by the Center alignment button.

If your real goal is to make one cell bigger than its neighbors, our article on resizing a single cell in Excel compares merging with wrapping text and the other options.

How to Merge Cells Without Losing Data

To keep text from several cells, join it in a new cell with a formula. Microsoft documents these methods in Combine text from two or more cells into one cell.

Method	Example	Notes
Ampersand (&)	=A2&" "&B2	Works in every version. Put any separator in quotation marks.
CONCAT	=CONCAT(A2," ",B2)	Excel 2019 and later, and Microsoft 365. Replaces CONCATENATE, which still works. Has no separator setting.
TEXTJOIN	=TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,A2:C2)	Excel 2019 and later, and Microsoft 365. Adds the separator for you. TRUE skips empty cells.

1. Click an empty cell outside the range you plan to merge.
2. Type one of the formulas above, using your own cell references, and press Enter.
3. Select the result and copy it.
4. Paste it back as values, so the text no longer depends on the original cells.
5. Now merge the original cells, or put the combined text in the upper-left cell first and then merge.

A combined result cannot be longer than 32,767 characters. Past that, CONCAT and TEXTJOIN return a #VALUE! error. For a worked example with names, see how to combine first and last names in Excel.

Windows, Mac, and Web Differences

Feature	Windows	Mac	Web
Merge & Center menu on the Home tab	Yes	Yes	Yes
Format Cells dialog	Ctrl+1	Command+1	Ctrl+1 opens number formats only
Center Across Selection	Yes	Yes	Not available
Undo a merge	Ctrl+Z	Command+Z	Ctrl+Z
CONCAT and TEXTJOIN	Excel 2019 and later	Excel 2019 and later	Yes

Microsoft gives the same merge and unmerge steps for all three. In a narrow window the button may show only its icon, so hover over the buttons in the Alignment group to see their names.

Why Merge & Center Is Greyed Out

If the button is dim or does nothing, work through these checks in order.

1. Finish editing the cell. While the cursor is blinking inside a cell, most ribbon buttons are off. Press Enter or Esc.
2. Check for an Excel table. Table cells cannot be merged. Click in the table, open the Table Design tab, and select Convert to Range in the Tools group. On Windows you can also right-click the table and choose Table > Convert to Range.
3. Unprotect the sheet. On the Review tab, select Unprotect Sheet and enter the password if asked.
4. Turn off legacy sharing. Workbooks that use the old Shared Workbook feature do not allow merging or unmerging cells.
5. Select one block of cells. Cells picked with Ctrl held down in separate places cannot be merged together.

A few notes on those fixes. Converting to a range removes table features such as the filter arrows and structured references, as described in Microsoft’s Convert an Excel table to a range of data article. If you do not know a sheet’s password, ask the person who protected it. And Microsoft describes Shared Workbooks as an older feature replaced by co-authoring, which does not have this restriction.

Problems Merged Cells Cause Later

• Sorting fails. Excel shows “This operation requires the merged cells to be identically sized.” Microsoft’s fix is to unmerge the cells in the range, or make every merged cell the same number of rows and columns.
• You lose track of them. A merged cell in the middle of a sheet is easy to forget. Use the Find steps above to list them all before you sort or restructure the data.

For these reasons, keep merged cells to titles and labels outside your data, and use Center Across Selection where you can.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a keyboard shortcut to merge cells in Excel?

Excel has no single built-in shortcut for merging. On Windows you can use the ribbon key tips: press Alt, then H, then M, and then the letter shown on screen for the option you want. Typically that is C for Merge & Center, A for Merge Across, M for Merge Cells, and U for Unmerge Cells. On a Mac, key tips are off by default. Newer Microsoft 365 versions of Excel let you turn them on under Excel > Preferences > Accessibility, and the letters shown on screen may differ.

Does merging cells delete data?

Yes. Excel keeps the upper-left value and deletes the contents of every other cell in the selection. Unmerging does not restore them. Use Undo immediately, or combine the values with a formula before merging.

Can I merge cells in an Excel table?

No. The merge commands are unavailable inside a table. Convert the table to a normal range first, or place the merged heading in the rows above the table.

Can I sort a column that has merged cells?

Only when every merged cell in the range is the same size. Otherwise Excel stops with an error. Unmerge the cells before sorting.

Can I merge cells in Excel for the web?

Yes. The Home tab has the same Merge & Center menu with the same four options. Center Across Selection is the part that is missing in the browser.

Can I merge two cells and keep both values?

Not with the merge commands. Join the values first with =A2&" "&B2, CONCAT, or TEXTJOIN, paste the result as values, and then merge.

Is merging the same in Google Sheets?

The idea is the same but the menus are different. See how to merge cells in Google Sheets for those steps.

Next Step

Try it on a title row first: type the heading in the first cell, select across the width of your data, and use Merge & Center or Center Across Selection. Then save the workbook and check that sorting and filtering below the heading still work.