How to remove non-highlighted cells in Excel?

In Excel, we often highlight cells that contain important information and may want to remove the non-highlighted cells. But how can you quickly delete cells without a highlighted color? This article provides quick and easy solutions.

Remove non-highlighted rows with Filter

Remove non-highlighted cells with Select Cells with Format tool

Remove non-highlighted rows with Filter

With the Filter function in Excel, you can filter out rows without a fill color and then delete these rows.

1. Select the data range including column headers, and click Data > Filter. See screenshot:

2. Click on one of the filter icons, and click Filter by Color > No Fill. See screenshot:

3. Click OK. Then only the rows without filled color have been filtered out.

4. Select the cells, press Delete key to remove the rows’ contents.

Remove non-highlighted cells with Select Cells with Format tool

If you want to remove multiple non-highlighted cells in a range of cells, you can apply Kutools for Excel’s Select Cells with Format utility to select all non-highlighted cells, then remove them.

1. Select all cells in the range you use, and click Kutools > Select > Select Cells with Format.

2. In the Select Cells with Format dialog, click Choose Format From Cell to select a cell which is non-highlighted. See screenshot:

3. Click OK, and all formats of the selected cell have been listed in the dialog, check Background Color only in Fill section. See screenshot:

4. Click Ok > Yes, all non-highlighted cells have been selected. Press Delete key to remove them.

Demo: Remove non-highlighted cells with Select Cells with Format tool