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How to Delete a Pivot Table in Google Sheets and Excel

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Deleting the pivot table data is straightforward. There are several methods that vary based on the type of outcome you seek.

In this article, we will learn the steps to delete the pivot table data.

This is going to be your step-by-step guide to deleting the pivot table in both Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel, so make sure to read this article until the end.

Click on the following links to jump to that particular section:

How To Delete A Pivot Table In Google Sheets?

Suppose you wish to delete the entire pivot table without retaining any data.

Method #1

  1. Click on the upper-leftmost cell of the Pivot Table
  2. Press the “Delete” key on your keyboard
Delete a Pivot Table in Google Sheets using the delete key

Open the Google Sheets and go to the pivot table spreadsheet. Next, click on the upper-leftmost cell of the Pivot Table as shown in the above image.

Now press the “Delete” button on your keyboard.

It will instantly delete the pivot table. Now you will have a blank spreadsheet without any gridlines.

To see the gridlines,

  1. Click on the “View” button from the top menu
  2. Then select “Show” from the dropdown
  3. Choose “Gridlines,” as shown in the following image.

View > Show > Gridlines

Method #2

  1. Select the Pivot Table data
  2. From the main menu, click on “Edit”
  3. Now click on “Delete”
  4. Choose “Values” from the dropdown
Delete a Pivot Table in Google Sheets using mouse navigation

Go to your spreadsheet containing the Pivot Table and select the table as shown in the above GIF.

Now head over to the main menu and click on “Edit.” You will see various options for data manipulation. Select the second last option, “Delete,” and choose “Values” from the dropdown.

Method #3

This method is similar to the previous one, but instead of selecting the table data only, you will choose the entire rows or columns containing the Pivot Table.

To get started,

Click on columns A, B, and C, as shown in the following image, to select the Pivot Table.

Now keep your cursor anywhere on the selection and right-click. It will open a new popup with various options. Next, select “Delete Columns A – C” to delete the Pivot Table.

You can follow the same process and select the rows to delete the Pivot Table.

All of the above methods will delete the Pivot Table but keep the spreadsheet as is. In the following method, we’ll learn to delete the entire spreadsheet.

Method #4

In this method, you will learn to delete the spreadsheet containing the Pivot Table you no longer need.

  1. Open the Google Sheets, and click on the spreadsheet containing the pivot table
  2. Now right-click on the spreadsheet to see more options
  3. You will see the “Delete” option at the top. Once you click Delete at the top, another popup will appear asking for your final confirmation.
  4. Simply click on “Ok,” and you are done.

Note that this action can not be undone, and Pivot Table and its data can’t be recovered. For added safety, you can create a backup of your data.

How to create a backup of the Pivot Table data?

You cannot create the dynamic backup of pivot table data with all the selections. However, if you have a table with specific rows and columns, copying and pasting and keeping that data for future reference is possible.

  1. Select the columns of the Pivot Table
  2. Now right-click anywhere on the selected area and say “Copy”
  3. Create a new spreadsheet using the “+” icon in the lower-leftmost corner of the screen
  4. Click on any of the spreadsheet columns, for instance, column A.
  5. Next, right-click and select the “Paste” option, then click on “Values Only” from the dropdown.

It will create a table without any formatting and formulas.

How To Delete A Pivot Table In Microsoft Excel?

Options and steps for deleting the Pivot Table in both Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel remain the same with little tweaks.

Method #1

Select the entire Pivot Table, as shown in the following image.

Now go to the main menu and choose the “Home” option. Go to “Cells” from the ribbon and click the “Delete” button.

Quick and easy! Your Pivot Table will disappear.

Method #2

Instead of selecting the entire table, you will choose the columns or rows containing the Pivot Table in this method.

Consider the above image where we have selected columns A, B, and C.

Next, keep your cursor anywhere on the selection and right-click. To delete the Pivot Table, you can click on the “Delete” option from the dropdown.

You can follow the same process by selecting the rows containing the pivot table data.

Method #3

Previously, we learned to delete the Pivot Table. But what if you wish to delete the entire Pivot Table spreadsheet?

It is pretty simple.

Open the Excel file and click on the spreadsheet containing the Pivot Table.

Now right-click on the spreadsheet name as shown in the following image. It will instantly display a popup with various options.

You need to click on the second option from the top that says “Delete.”

As this is a one-time action that can not be undone, and there is no way to recover the deleted spreadsheet, a confirmation window will appear asking for further permissions. You can click “Delete” to proceed further and delete the spreadsheet containing the Pivot Table.

Conclusion

So, that’s it!

Pivot tables are an excellent way of summarizing data. Still, as they behave differently from the typical tables and mainly act as raw data for your main reports, sometimes users may wish to get rid of them after doing all of the calculations and analysis.

I hope you learned the best way to delete the Pivot Table in Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel with the help of this article.

Feel free to comment below if you have any doubts or are stuck somewhere while deleting the pivot tables. I will try to answer all of your questions as soon as possible.