Hidden sheets, defined names and personal information in Excel: how to take them out
Last updated: 16 October 2026
Short answer: on a copy, delete the hidden sheets and the defined names nobody needs, break the links to other workbooks, replace pivot tables with plain values if the figures are all that is needed, and clear the properties. Document Inspector on Windows finds hidden names, external links and cached pivot data but, Microsoft says, cannot remove them.
Where each of these sits in an .xlsx file, and how to spot it, is in our guide to finding hidden data in Excel. This page is about taking it out with Excel's own commands.
1. Hidden and very hidden sheets
Microsoft's page Hide or unhide worksheets gives the route on Windows and on the Mac: Home › Format › Hide & Unhide › Unhide Sheet, which lists the hidden sheets. Unhide each one, look at it, and delete it if it is not meant to go out. The page notes that data in a hidden sheet can still be referenced from other sheets.
Unhide does not list very hidden sheets (see finding hidden data in Excel), so an empty list does not mean there are none. If you do not use the Visual Basic Editor, ask the person who built the workbook, as Microsoft's page suggests.
Before deleting a sheet, check whether formulas on the sheets you keep use it. If they do, paste those cells back as values first.
2. Defined names
A defined name labels a cell, range, formula or constant, and its label can say more than the sheet does — a client, a project, a person. Work on a copy. A formula that uses a name stops working once the name is gone: Microsoft's page How to correct a #NAME? error says that when a formula refers to a name not defined in Excel, "you see the #NAME? error". Before deleting a name, search the formulas for it.
Microsoft's page Use the Name Manager in Excel gives the route: on the Formulas tab, in the Defined Names group, select Name Manager. Select the names you do not need, select Delete, and confirm. Read the Refers To column as you go: a name that points to another workbook is also a link (step 4).
The same page says the Name Manager "does not display names defined in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), or hidden names". Document Inspector finds hidden names but, in Microsoft's words on the page Hidden names found, "can't remove these hidden names for you". That page offers a macro that steps through them one at a time, with a warning: add-ins such as Solver, or macros, "may not work as expected" once their hidden names are gone. Run it on a copy.
3. Pivot table caches
A pivot table can keep its own copy of the source records, which can outlive the source sheet; finding hidden data in Excel explains where.
Microsoft's page PivotTable options lists a setting on the Data tab, "Save source data with file", and adds a warning in the same place: "This setting should not be used to manage data privacy." If the recipient needs the figures and not the pivot table, paste the table as values into a new workbook, or save the one sheet they need as CSV. Document Inspector reports "BI features that may have cached data", but Microsoft lists them among the things it can't remove.
4. Links to other workbooks
A formula that reads another workbook stores that workbook's path, and a path often contains a user name, a server name or a client's folder. Microsoft's page Manage workbook links opens the Workbook Links pane from Data › Queries and Connections › Workbook Links, and the steps differ by version:
- Excel for Windows: select More Commands next to a workbook and then Break links, or Break all at the top of the pane.
- Excel for the web: select Link options next to a workbook and then Break links, or Options at the top right of the pane and then Break all links.
Breaking a link converts "all formulas that use the value in the source workbook" to "their current values". On Windows, Microsoft adds, "this action cannot be undone", so save a copy first; for the web app the page says it can be undone. The same page says "There is no automatic way to find all workbook links in a workbook", and suggests where to look: formulas (search for ".xl"), defined names, shapes and text boxes, and chart titles and series. A query's parameter may also be reading another workbook.
5. Document and custom properties
The properties hold the author, the last person to save, the company and any custom fields. On Windows they are under File › Info › Properties › Advanced Properties; the Custom tab lists the custom ones (Microsoft's page View or change the properties for an Office file). Inside the file, custom properties are their own part, docProps/custom.xml.
Document Inspector's "Document Properties and Personal Information" item covers more than the dialog shows; what it covers in Excel is listed in our guide to hidden data types in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Microsoft's Document Inspector page gives the route, File › Info › Check for Issues › Inspect Document; inspect a copy, as what it removes cannot always be restored.
On a Mac and in the browser
We found no Microsoft page that says whether Excel for Mac has Document Inspector; our Mac guide covers what you can check by hand.
ScrubDrop reads the workbook in your browser; the file is not uploaded. For free, it lists each category above that it finds, with counts and short samples, and removes the properties and comments; removing hidden sheets, names, pivot caches and links is part of ScrubDrop Pro. When it removes a hidden sheet, a defined name or a link, it replaces every formula on the sheets that stay with its last saved result — not only the formulas that used what was removed — so the visible numbers stay as they were but the workbook no longer recalculates. A workbook whose formulas have no saved results is refused rather than guessed at. The result is read again with separate parsers, and a file that fails that re-check is not offered.
The re-check is a strong signal, not a promise. Open the cleaned workbook and look at every sheet before you send it, and keep your working copy for any further calculation.
Check the copy you are about to send
Open the saved copy, not the one you worked in, and go through the same places again.
- Home › Format › Hide & Unhide: the Unhide Sheet list should hold nothing you meant to remove. It never shows very hidden sheets, so this is not the whole check.
- Formulas › Name Manager: only the names you meant to keep, and none whose Refers To points at another workbook.
- Data › Queries and Connections › Workbook Links: no workbook you meant to cut off.
- File › Info › Properties › Advanced Properties: the Summary and Custom tabs.
- On Windows, run Document Inspector again and read what it still reports, above all the items it says it cannot remove.
The places Excel's own dialogs do not show — very hidden sheets, hidden names, the records inside a pivot cache — can be checked in the file itself; how is in finding hidden data in Excel.
Questions
Will breaking links change the numbers in my workbook?
The numbers stay; the formulas behind them go. Microsoft's Manage workbook links page says breaking a link converts all formulas that use the value in the source workbook to their current values, and that on Windows the action cannot be undone.
Does clearing "Save source data with file" remove the pivot table's data from the workbook?
Do not rely on it. Microsoft's PivotTable options page says the setting "should not be used to manage data privacy". If the recipient only needs the figures, send them as values in a new workbook or a CSV file.
Can Document Inspector remove hidden names and external links?
No. Microsoft lists both hidden names and external links among the things Document Inspector finds but can't remove in Excel. Hidden names need the macro on Microsoft's Hidden names found page; links are broken from the Workbook Links pane.
Sources: the Microsoft pages linked on this page were checked on 16 October 2026.
See what a workbook is carrying before it goes out, in your browser. Free: one file at a time; every kind of hidden data is listed, and properties, comments and tracked changes are removed. Check a file.