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How to clear old items in pivot table?

Author Xiaoyang Last modified

After creating the pivot table based on a data range, sometimes, we need to change the data source to our need. But, the old items might still reserve in the filter drop down, this will be annoying. In this article, I will talk about how to clear the old items in pivot table.

Clear old items in pivot table

arrow blue right bubble Clear old items in pivot table

Supposing, I have the following data source, and now, I change the Coconut to Apple, and refresh the pivot table, but, the old Coconut item still appear in the filter drop down list, see screenshot:

sample data

To clear the old items from the filter drop down in the pivot table, you should do as follows:

1. Click any cell in pivot table, and right click, choose PivotTable Options from the context menu, see screenshot:

click PivotTable Options from context menu

2. In the PivotTable Options dialog box, click Data tab, and then choose None from the Number of items to retain per field drop down list, see screenshot:

set options in the PivotTable Options dialog box

3. And then click OK to close the dialog box, and refresh the pivot table, now, when you click the Filter arrow, the old item has been cleared at once, see screenshot:

result of clearing old items

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