How to Unhide All Sheets at Once in Excel

The "right-click and unhide one at a time" problem

Excel's right-click > Unhide menu lists hidden sheets, but you can only pick one at a time. For a workbook with 12 hidden sheets, that's 12 right-clicks. And very-hidden sheets (set via VBA) don't show up in the menu at all. Here are the three ways to handle this.

TL;DR — Key takeaways

• The right-click > Unhide menu handles regular hidden sheets one at a time.
• Very-hidden sheets (xlSheetVeryHidden) only show up in the VBA editor's Project pane.
• A VBA macro unhides every hidden and very-hidden sheet in one pass.

Method 1: Right-click > Unhide

1. Right-click any tab.
2. Click Unhide.
3. The dialog shows hidden sheets. Pick one. Click OK.
4. Repeat.

The catch: one at a time. Very-hidden sheets don't appear.

Method 2: VBA loop

A small subroutine:

Sub UnhideAll()
    Dim ws As Worksheet
    For Each ws In ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets
        ws.Visible = xlSheetVisible
    Next ws
End Sub

Drop in a module, run. Handles both hidden and very-hidden states.

The catch: if you don't already use VBA, the setup is more than the payoff.

Method 3: The free VBA macro

Download Unhide All Sheets. Free .xlsm with one macro.

1. Open the workbook.
2. Alt + F8, pick the macro, click Run.
3. Every hidden and very-hidden sheet becomes visible. Popup confirms count.

Hidden vs very-hidden

State	Right-click Unhide	Visible in tab bar
xlSheetVisible	N/A	Yes
xlSheetHidden	Yes (in dialog)	No
xlSheetVeryHidden	No	No

Very-hidden is a deliberate "you can only see this if you know to look in the VBA editor" state. People use it to hide config tabs or staging sheets they don't want users tampering with. The macro reveals them.

A common scenario: workbook handover

You inherited a workbook from a colleague who hid 7 sheets and very-hid 3 more. You don't know what's there. You want to see the full structure before deciding what to keep, what to delete, what to re-hide.

1. Run Unhide All Sheets.
2. Walk the workbook. See every tab.
3. Right-click and Hide tabs that should stay hidden.
4. To delete the unwanted hidden ones (after re-hiding what you want), use Delete All Hidden Sheets.

Versus right-click discovery: the right-click menu shows only the regular hidden ones; the very-hidden tabs would never surface.

Frequently asked questions

Will it work if the workbook is protected?

Workbook-level protection prevents structural changes including sheet visibility. Unprotect via Review > Protect Workbook first.

Does it activate any of the unhidden sheets?

No. The active sheet stays the active sheet.

What about hidden rows or columns within a sheet?

This macro only handles sheet-level visibility. For hidden rows or columns, select the surrounding rows/columns and right-click > Unhide.

Can I undo it?

Ctrl/Cmd + Z doesn't reliably undo Visible property changes. To re-hide manually, right-click each tab > Hide.

What to do next

After unhiding to see what's there, common follow-ups: List All Sheet Names to generate a navigable index, or Delete All Hidden Sheets to clean up the ones you don't need.