To freeze rows in Google Sheets on a computer, select a row and go to View > Freeze, then choose how many rows to lock. On Android you touch and hold a row; on iPhone and iPad you tap the row number and then a right arrow. The steps below cover freezing, unfreezing, hiding and grouping on all three platforms, taken from Google's help page for the desktop version and its Android and iOS variants.
The menus differ by platform. On desktop, freeze and group live in the View menu, but hide is a right-click action. On phones and tablets, everything starts from touching the row or column itself.
Freeze and unfreeze rows or columns on a computer
- Open a spreadsheet in Google Sheets.
- Select a row or column to freeze or unfreeze.
- Click View > Freeze.
- Choose how many rows or columns to freeze.
To freeze the first column, which is a common request, select that column first and pick the column option in the same menu.
To unfreeze: select a row or column, then click View > Freeze > No rows or No columns, according to Google's desktop instructions. This is the fix if headers stay stuck after you no longer need them, or if you froze the wrong thing.
Hide a row or column on a computer
- Click a row or column to highlight it. To select several, Google's page says to hold the Command key and click them (that is the Mac wording).
- Right-click and choose Hide row or Hide column.
- An arrow appears over the spot where the row or column was hidden.
That arrow is your clue that data is hidden, not deleted. If a sheet looks like it skips a row number or column letter, look for it.
Group rows or columns on a computer
- Select the rows or columns.
- Click View > Group.
- Choose Group rows, Group columns, Ungroup rows or Ungroup columns.
Hide or group: which one to use
Hiding makes rows disappear, leaving only a small arrow behind. Grouping gives you Plus (+) and Minus (-) controls to expand and collapse a block, as Google's Android help describes. If other people will use the sheet and need to know there's more data, grouping makes that obvious. Hiding suits columns nobody needs to see, such as helper columns used for formulas like the ones in our guide to highlighting duplicates in Google Sheets.
Freeze, hide and group on Android
Per Google's Android instructions:
- Freeze or unfreeze: touch and hold a row or column, then tap Freeze or Unfreeze.
- Hide: touch and hold a row or column, then tap Hide Row or Hide column.
- Group:
- Highlight the rows or columns.
- Touch and hold the highlighted area.
- Tap More, then Group or Ungroup.
- Expand or collapse a group: tap Plus (+) or Minus (-). If there's a group inside another group, Google's page says to tap the double arrows (ยป) first.
The usual Android snag is that grouping isn't on the first menu. It sits under More.
Freeze, hide and group on iPhone and iPad
The iOS app hides most options behind a right arrow in the pop-up menu, according to Google's iPhone and iPad instructions:
- Freeze or unfreeze: tap a row number or column letter, tap the right arrow in the menu, then tap Freeze or Unfreeze.
- Hide: tap a row or column, tap the right arrow, then tap Hide row or Hide column.
- Group: highlight the rows or columns, tap them, tap the right arrow, then tap Group or Ungroup.
If you tap a row and don't see Freeze, you haven't gone far enough: tap the right arrow to reach the rest of the menu.
What this guide doesn't cover
Google's help page also covers merging cells, which isn't included here. It's also unclear from what we could confirm whether there's a cap on how many rows or columns you can freeze, or whether freezing works in a phone's web browser, so those aren't covered. If you're freezing headers on a sheet that pulls data from elsewhere, our guide to IMPORTRANGE explains that side of the setup.
