Three methods quickly hide/mask cell contents with asterisk or other string in Excel

Sometimes, you may want to hide some cell contents while you sharing the workbook to other users as below screenshot shown. Here, this article will introduce three methods on masking cells with asterisk for hiding the contents in Excel.

• Hide and mask cell contents with asterisk with Format Cells
• Hide and mask cell contents with asterisk with VBA code
• Encrypt and mask cell contents with asterisk or other string
• Other relatived articles (operations) about worksheet

In Excel, to mask cell contents with asterisk, you can use the Format Cells function.

1. Select the cells you want to hide with asterisk, then right click to select Format Cells from the context menu.

2. In the Format Cells dialog, under Number tab, select Custom from Category list, and then type ;;;** into the textbox under Type.

3. Click OK, now the select cell contents have been masked with asterisks.

But the cell contents also can be viewed in the formula bar.

4. Place cursor at the cell you do not want to hide contents, then click Review > Protect Sheet, and uncheck Select unlock cells and Format cells option (other options you can check as you need), then type and confirm the password for protecting the sheet in the popping dialogs.

Then the cell contents have been hidden and masked with asterisks.

Note: If the cell contents are numeric string, this way only with display the cell contents as blank.

If you want to mask both numbers and texts, you can apply VBA code.

1. Select the cells you want to encrypt, and press Alt + F11 keys to enable Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.

2. Click Insert > Module, then copy and paste below code to the new Module.

VBA: Hide #N/A error rows

Sub E_Cells()
'UpdatebyExtendoffice
Dim xRg As Range
Dim xERg As Range
Dim xWs As Worksheet
Dim xStrRg As String
Dim xStrPw As String
xStrPw = ""
xStrPw = Application.InputBox("Enter Password", "", "", Type:=2)
If xStrPw = "" Then Exit Sub
On Error Resume Next
Set xERg = Selection
Set xWs = Application.ActiveSheet
Set xRg = xWs.Cells
xRg.Locked = False
xERg.Locked = True
xERg.NumberFormatLocal = "**;**;**;**"
xWs.Protect Password:=xStrPw, DrawingObjects:=True, Contents:=True, Scenarios:=True
End Sub 

3. Press F5 key to run the code. And then type password in the popping out dialog, and click the OK button. See screenshot:

Tip:

1. For decrypting the cells, you can use below macro code.

Sub D_Cells()
'UpdatebyExtendoffice
Dim xRg As Range
Dim xERg As Range
Dim xWs As Worksheet
Dim xStrRg As String
Dim xStrPw As String
xStrPw = ""
xStrPw = Application.InputBox("Type Password", "", "", Type:=2)
If xStrPw = "" Then Exit Sub
On Error Resume Next
Set xWs = Application.ActiveSheet
Set xRg = xWs.UsedRange
xERg.NumberFormatLocal = "**;**;**;**"
xWs.Unprotect Password:=xStrPw
For Each xERg In xRg
    If xERg.Locked Then xERg.NumberFormatLocal = "@"
Next
End Sub

2. With the VBA code, the cell contents also can be viewed in formula bar.

If you want to encrypt and mask cell contents with the special string as you need, the Encrypt Cells feature of Kutools for Excel can do a nice favor.

After free installing Kutools for Excel (30-day free trial), please do as below steps.

1. Select the cells you want to mask, then click Kutools Plus > Encrypt Cells.

2. Then in the popping dialog, type and confirm the password, then in Mask section, check the option as you need.

3. Then click Ok. At present, all selected cells have been masked.

Check None, the cells display a string of gibberish.

Check Char option, you can type any character into the textbox, then the cells will display the character only.

Check String option, then type the string you want the cells display.

Tip: if you want to decrypt the cells or display the cell contents, you can click Kutools Plus > Decrypt Cells, then type the password to successfully decrypt.