Unable to delete multiple rows in a very large spreadsheet

[richard12]

I have a sheet with 688,000 rows and 12 columns. I select specific records and can highlight them. But I cannot delete them except one by one and there are about 48,000 records I want to delete. I have tried to delete data in the rows, but I receive the same error message as for rows with the data. The error message is: "This won't work because it would move cells in a table on your worksheet." I am using Windows Excel 365. The rows have no calculated values or special properties. The sheet was a download of only values, with no formatting or calculations. The sheet has text and numbers in the rows. Is there any way to delete multiple rows in this type of sheet?

I did a copy/paste of multiple rows of this sheet to another sheet. Then selected all rows to delete. That worked!! And, it was instant. Excel worked like it always has until I had to deal with the massive amount of data on this sheet.

 

[Coding4Fun]

It sounds like it has formatted some of the data in your sheet as a table and its causing the issue. It sounds like copy and paste to a new workbook worked and is a solution?

Just copy and paste either into a new sheet or workbook and ensure to just paste the values no formatting and then try to delete what you want.

 

[richard12]

It sounds like it has formatted some of the data in your sheet as a table and its causing the issue. It sounds like copy and paste to a new workbook worked and is a solution?

Just copy and paste either into a new sheet or workbook and ensure to just paste the values no formatting and then try to delete what you want.

Thank you for explaining why the copy/paste worked. The original spreadsheet table has formatting. When I copied the entire spreadsheet, then pasted it to a new sheet using only values, I was then able to delete multiple rows without problems. Worked perfectly.