Guides / Hidden sheets
How to find and unhide very hidden sheets in Excel
Excel has two kinds of hidden sheet. Ordinary hidden sheets show up in the Unhide dialog. Very hidden sheets do not — Excel gives no sign they exist. Here is how to find them and bring them back.
1Hidden vs very hidden
Every sheet has a Visible property with three values:
| Value | Constant | How to set it | In the Unhide dialog? |
|---|---|---|---|
| -1 | xlSheetVisible | Normal | — |
| 0 | xlSheetHidden | Right-click a tab › Hide | Yes |
| 2 | xlSheetVeryHidden | Only from VBA or the VBA editor | No |
Template and model builders use very hidden sheets for lookup tables, settings and calculations they do not want edited by accident. It is not security: anyone can unhide them in a minute, as below.
2Unhide ordinary hidden sheets
Right-click any sheet tab and choose Unhide, or use Home › Format › Hide & Unhide › Unhide Sheet (Alt, H, O, U, H). Microsoft 365 lets you select several sheets in that dialog at once with Ctrl or Shift; older versions unhide one at a time. If Unhide is greyed out, there are no ordinary hidden sheets — but there may still be very hidden ones.
3Check whether a workbook has very hidden sheets
- Press Alt+F11 to open the VBA editor. This works in
.xlsxfiles too; you are not adding any code. - Press Ctrl+R if the Project Explorer is not showing.
- Expand VBAProject (your file) › Microsoft Excel Objects.
Every sheet is listed there whatever its visibility. Any sheet in that list that has no tab and is not in the Unhide dialog is very hidden.
4Unhide one in the Properties window
- In the Project Explorer, click the sheet.
- Press F4 to open the Properties window.
- Set Visible to
-1 - xlSheetVisible.
The tab reappears immediately. To hide it again the same way, choose
2 - xlSheetVeryHidden.
5Unhide all of them with one line
In the VBA editor press Ctrl+G to open the Immediate window, paste this line and press Enter. It makes every sheet in the active workbook visible, hidden and very hidden alike:
For Each s In ActiveWorkbook.Sheets: s.Visible = xlSheetVisible: NextFor a single sheet:
ActiveWorkbook.Sheets("Lookup").Visible = xlSheetVisible
Nothing is saved as code, so the file can stay an .xlsx.
6When it does not work
- “Unable to set the Visible property” — the workbook structure is protected. Review › Protect Workbook must be turned off first, which needs its password if one was set.
- The project will not expand — its VBA project is locked for viewing. Select a different, unlocked project in the Project Explorer (any other open workbook) and name the workbook explicitly in the Immediate window:
Workbooks("Model.xlsm").Sheets("Lookup").Visible = xlSheetVisible. - Hiding fails — a workbook must always have at least one visible sheet, so Excel refuses to hide the last one.
See them without the VBA editor. Vertical Tabs lists very hidden sheets in its pane, greyed and in italics, alongside everything else. Right-click one to bring it back.
See Vertical Tabs →