7 Keyboard Shortcuts for the Filter Drop Down Menus in Excel

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221
7 Keyboard Shortcuts for the Filter Drop Down Menus

Jon Acampora
April 29, 2014
Categories ↓
Excel Ribbon
Keyboard Shortcuts

This post will explain 7 keyboard shortcuts for the filter drop-down menus.  This includes my new favorite
shortcut, and it’s one that I think you will really like!

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7 Keyboard Shortcuts for the Filter Drop Down Menus in Excel

The Filter drop-down menus (formerly known as Auto Filters in Excel 2003) are an extremely useful tool for
sorting and filtering your data.  When the Filters are applied you will see small drop-down icon images in the
header (top) row of your data range.

These menus can be accessed with keyboard shortcuts, which makes it really fast to apply filters and sorting
to different columns in your table.  So let’s take a look at these shortcuts.

#1 – Turn Filters On or Off

Ctrl+Shift+L is the keyboard shortcut to turn the filters on/off.  You can see this shortcut by going to the
Data tab on the Ribbon and hovering over the Filter button with the mouse.  The screen tip will appear
below the button and it displays the keyboard shortcut in the top line.  This works with a lot of buttons in
the ribbon and is a great way to learn keyboard shortcuts.  See the image below.

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To apply the drop down filters you will first need to select a cell in your data range.  If your data range
contains any blank columns or rows then it is best to select the entire range of cells.

Once the data cell(s) are selected, press Ctrl+Shift+L to apply the filters.  The drop down filter menus
should appear in the header row of your data, as shown in the image below.

#2 Display the Filter Drop Down Menu

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Alt+Down Arrow is the keyboard shortcut to open the drop down menu.  To use this shortcut:

1. Select a cell in the header row.  The cell must contain the filter drop down icon. 
2. Press and hold the Alt key, then press the Down Arrow key on the keyboard to open the filter menu.

Once the drop down menu is open, there are a lot of keyboard shortcuts that apply to this menu.  These
shortcuts are explained next.

Bonus Tip: If you are using Excel Tables, and I highly recommend you do, you can press Shift+Alt+ Down
Arrow from any cell inside the table to open the filter drop-down menu for that column.

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This shortcut was introduced in Excel 2010 for Windows, and works in all newer versions as well.

#3 Underlined Letters & Arrow Keys

The underlined letters in the drop-down menu are the shortcut keys for each command.  For example,
pressing the letter “S” on the keyboard will Sort the column A to Z.  You must first press Alt+Down Arrow to
display the drop down menu.  So here are the full keyboard shortcuts for the filter drop down menu:

Alt+Down Arrow+S – Sort A to Z

Alt+Down Arrow+O – Sort Z to A
Alt+Down Arrow+T – Sort by Color sub menu
Alt+Down Arrow+I – Filter by Color sub menu
Alt+Down Arrow+F – Text or Date Filter sub menu

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7 Keyboard Shortcuts for the Filter Drop Down Menus in Excel

#4 Check/Uncheck Filter Items

The up and down arrow keys will move through the items in the drop down menu.  You can press
the Enter key to perform that action.  This requires the drop down menu to be open by first pressing
Alt+Down Arrow.  See the image in #3 above for details.

Starting in Excel 2007, a list of unique items appears at the bottom of the filter drop down menu with check
boxes next to each item.  You can use the up/down arrow keys to select these items in the list.  When an
item is selected, pressing the space bar will check/uncheck the check box.  Then press Enter to apply the
filter.

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7 Keyboard Shortcuts for the Filter Drop Down Menus in Excel

#5 Search Box – My New FAVORITE

Starting in Excel 2010 a Search box was added to the filter drop-down menu.  Excel 2011 for Mac users also
get this feature.

This search box allows you to type a search and narrow down the results of the filter items in the list below
it.

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7 Keyboard Shortcuts for the Filter Drop Down Menus in Excel

When the filter drop down menu is open, you can press the letter “E” on the keyboard to jump to the search
box.  This places the cursor in the search box and you can begin typing your search.

Alt+Down+Arrow+E is the shortcut to open the filter drop down menu and jump directly to the search box.

I just learned this shortcut and it is my new favorite because it makes it so fast to type and filter exactly
what you are looking for in the list.  Prior to learning this I was using the down arrow key to get to the search
box.  This required me to press the down arrow key 7 times to get to the search box.  Now I can do the
same thing in one step by pressing the letter “E”.  What a time saver!

#6 Clear Filters in Column

Alt+Down Arrow+C will clear the filters in the selected column.  Again, this is a combination of the
Alt+Down Arrow to open the filter menu, then the letter “C” to clear the filter.

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7 Keyboard Shortcuts for the Filter Drop Down Menus in Excel

This would be the same as pressing the (Select All) checkbox in the item list.  The next shortcut will explain
how to clear all the filters in all columns.

#7 Clear All Filters

Alt+A+C is the keyboard shortcut to clear all the filters in the current filtered range.  This means that all the
filters in all the columns will be cleared, and all rows of your data will be displayed.

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7 Keyboard Shortcuts for the Filter Drop Down Menus in Excel

I add the Clear Filter button to the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) and would highly recommend that you do
this.  It serves two purposes that are very helpful.

1. You can quickly press the button in the QAT to clear the filters.  If you are a mouse user this means
you don’t have to navigate to the Data menu to access the button.  You can also use keyboard
shortcuts to press the buttons in the QAT.  See my articles on how to setup the Quick Access Toolbar 
and how to use the QAT’s keyboard shortcuts for instructions on this.
_
2. Use the button to visually see if any filters are applied.  This is the most important benefit to me.  If
any filters are applied to the filter range, then the Clear Filter button in the QAT will show color
(enabled).  If no filters are applied then the button is grayed out (disabled).  See the image below for
details.

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Debra Dalgleish has a great post and video with a few additional tips to Clear Excel Fitlers with a Single
Click over at the Contextures blog.

#8 Filter for Blank or Non-blank Cells or Rows

Alt+Down Arrow+F+E+Enter will filter for blanks cells in the column.

The F,E combo opens the Custom AutoFilter menu where you can type a search term.  The box is blank by
default.  So if you just hit Enter when the Custom AutoFilter menu opens, the column will be filtered for
blanks.

This is another one of my new favorites!  It’s much faster than unchecking the Select All box, then scrolling
to the bottom of the item list.

You can also filter for Non-blanks using the shortcut Alt+Down Arrow+F+N+Enter.  This opens the
Custom AutoFilter menu and sets the comparison operator to does not equal.  The criteria is blank by
default, so this applies a filter for non-blank cells.  Thanks to Nilesh for leaving a comment and inspiring this
one!

Bonus Tip
Typically you can only have one range filtered on a sheet at a time.  This means that if you have more than
one range of data on a sheet, you can not apply the Filters menus to both ranges.

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7 Keyboard Shortcuts for the Filter Drop Down Menus in Excel

If you use the new Excel Tables feature (introduced in Excel 2007 and available for 2011 for Mac) then you
can apply Filters to each table in the same worksheet.

Checkout my video tutorial on Tables to learn more about all the great time saving benefits they have to
offer.

Want More? – Download the Workbook

I hope you’ve learned some new tricks that will save you time when working with Filters.  In my opinion, the
keyboard shortcuts are the fastest way to work with these menus.  I encourage you to practice these
techniques, and also share them with a friend that might benefit.

I have also created a free workbook that contains over 25 keyboard shortcuts for the Filter Menus. The
workbook is organized by topic and contains images that will help you learn the shortcuts.  It also includes a
data table where you can practice the shortcuts.

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7 Keyboard Shortcuts for the Filter Drop Down Menus in Excel

Filter Drop-down Shortcuts Workbook Sample Page

Filter Drop-down Shortcuts Workbook.xlsx

Please click the link above and the Excel file that contains the shortcuts will be emailed to you immediately.

You will also have the option to subscribe to my free email newsletter to stay updated with new articles and
videos that will help you learn Excel.  After confirming your subscription you will be able to download my “10
Excel Pro Tips” eBook.  It’s all free!

Challenge Question
What does the following keyboard shortcut sequence do?  The selected cell must be in the header of a
filtered range.

Alt+Down Arrow+E, Down Arrow, Space Bar, Shift+End, Space Bar, Enter

Please leave a comment below with your answer.  Thanks!

Please share

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7 Keyboard Shortcuts for the Filter Drop Down Menus in Excel

Jon Acampora

Welcome to Excel Campus! I am excited you are here.

My name is Jon and my goal is to help you learn Excel
to save time with your job and advance in your career.
I've been an avid Excel user and VBA developer for
10+ years. I am also a Microsoft MVP.
I try to learn something new everyday, and want to share this
knowledge with you to help you improve your skills. When I'm not looking at spreadsheets, I get outdoors
and surf. :) more about me

Click Here to Leave a Comment Below 221 comments

Older Comments

Salik - July 2, 2018

Indeed helpful. Thanks very much. Would be beneficial in saving time and increasing productivity/efficiency.

Reply

Bharat - May 28, 2018

how to insert filter in particular one box

Reply

Harry - May 11, 2018

Hi John,

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7 Keyboard Shortcuts for the Filter Drop Down Menus in Excel

Is it possible to do any of these functions on Excel for Mac. My biggest grime of my company is I had to
move to Mac and can’t press Alt to navigate the ribbon anymore (from what I can see).

Thanks,
Harry

Reply

Garvit - June 26, 2018

No for Mac it has different shortcut keys

Reply

BHARANI - April 18, 2018

I need shortcut for applying after filter then check value one by one ascending order in excel

Example : A, B , C ,D

i need check the value one by one in ” D ”

value is ok then again every time i move the mouse or keyboard using multiple buttons,,

but i need after apply filter then check one row value one by one… using single key option…???

Reply

bouhamidi yacine - April 9, 2018

thank you

Reply

Ketan Sharma - March 7, 2018

To dropdown in my PC, Alt+Down Arrow worked, but in my Dell Inspiron Laptop, it rotates the screen. I use
Office 16. please advise

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Reply

Shirish - March 19, 2018

@Ketan: Is your “Ctrl” button in activated mode / did you accidentally hit on it?
“Ctrl + Alt + Arrow” is the Keyboard combo for rotating the screen in the desired direction.
Cheers

Reply

Souvik - February 28, 2018

Hi,

Is there any shortcut to directly select the last selected option?

Reply

Daniel - May 23, 2018

Alt+Down down… until you get to the box selection and then press “End”.

Reply

Brady - February 23, 2018

Is there a shortcut to jump straight to the selection menu box. Similar to alt+E but for the box below?

Reply

AnotherHiggins - March 5, 2018

Brady,

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7 Keyboard Shortcuts for the Filter Drop Down Menus in Excel

Alt+Down Arrow, E, Down Arrow

will take you to the Select All box.

Reply

elonderin - February 16, 2018

shift+alt+down/up not working with latest version of excel as of 2018-02-16

Reply

Tran Binh - March 1, 2018

Hi Elonderin,
You must use Excel Tables.

Reply

kaleeswaran - February 7, 2018

Thank you sir, very use full hints thank you sir , i will be followed youtube

Reply

Alex - December 31, 2017

Interestingly, your challenge question doesn’t work on date filters. I have a different problem on date
filtering that brought me to your article so I thought it was interesting to see another way in which Date
filtering diverges from normal filtering. Nonetheless–I do appreciate learning a new combination I hadn’t
thought to use before, and it will definitely help for when I’m manually categorizing data in a new column.
Thank you!

FYI – Doing the above challenge combination on a date column table header gets you stuck on an extra
drop-down menu for date groupings with the following options: “All”, “Year”, “Month”, “Date”. It’s actually this
special “grouping” that Excel (2016) provides that has baffled me to no end on how to actually apply a

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*specific* date to the filter using just the keyboard. In the challange’s case, the solution is to replace with ,
using has the additional benefit of always working in both regular & date filter formats with the caveat that
you’ll have to hit twice in date filters to place the cursor in the list of column items.

The larger problem though, is that even with the column formatted as Date (IE an entry of 10/1/2014), as
soon as you use a “/” in the search query, the query returns no results. A bit of playing around and I haven’t
found any special kind of syntax that allows me to do this kind of filtering via typed query. It’s so frustrating!

Reply

Justin - December 4, 2017

Challenge question:
Looks for spaces in the filter column. Essentially filter for ” “.

I use find and replace a space ” ” with nothing “”. When I have vlookup formula that returned nothing (not
#N/A but nothing) and I copy and paste values to get rid of the formulas, I need to remove these left of
spaces in cells.

Reply

Sivanesan - December 3, 2017

Good Article.

Answer to your Question (not so challenging though… as you have explained it already in detail)

It takes you to the last option in the filter (it will be blank, in case the list has a blank value)

Thanks

Reply

sujith - November 28, 2017

Gud one

Reply

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7 Keyboard Shortcuts for the Filter Drop Down Menus in Excel

Hardeep - November 25, 2017

Alt+Down Arrow+E command does not work in filter,

Reply

Iqbal - November 19, 2017

awesome ,,,very very useful

Reply

Sriram - November 18, 2017

Good one. Really helpful

Reply

sakthivel - November 3, 2017

very usefull

Reply

Ranjeet Singh - October 18, 2017

Alt+down does not work for merged Cells. it is not working when A1,A2 B1,B2 is merged. and I want to use
this shortcut It is not giving the proper list.

Please help if knows

Reply
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