Making a spreadsheet very hidden

Excel 2016
Using the Hide command, you can hide the data and formulas from "inquisitive minds." But some of them still can use the Unhide command. Nevertheless, you can completely hide the Excel spreadsheet so that some VBA programming will be needed to unhide it.

Note: You can't hide all the sheets in a workbook; at least one sheet should remain visible.

You can hide the Excel spreadsheet by right-clicking on it and selecting Hide in the popup menu:

Hide spreadsheet in Excel 365

But anybody can unhide it easily: by right-clicking in any spreadsheet and selecting Unhide... in the popup menu:

Unhide spreadsheet in Excel 365

Excel displays the Unhide dialog box, where you need to select the sheet that you want to unhide:

Unhide dialog box in Excel 365

Note: It is impossible to select multiple sheets from this dialog box, so you need to repeat the command for each sheet you want to unhide. When you unhide a sheet, it appears in its original position among the sheet tabs.


To make an Excel sheet very hidden (it wouldn't be visible in the Unhide menu), do the following:

   1.   Right-click in the spreadsheet and choose View Code in the popup menu:

View Code spreadsheet in Excel 365

   2.   In the Microsoft Visual Basic dialog box:

  • In the top Project - VBA Project box, you can see all workbook's sheets (choose another sheet if it is necessary):
    VBA Project Properties in Excel 365
  • In the bottom Properties - sheet name box, select the Visible option, and choose 2 - xlSheetVeryHidden:
    spreadsheet Properties in Excel 365

After performing these steps, the spreadsheet will be hidden, and it will not appear in the Unhide dialog box.


To unhide a very hidden sheet, you can use the View code menu and select 1 - xlSheetVisible for the Visible option in the Properties box.

See also this tip in French: Comment rendre une feuille de calcul plus masquée.

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