How to Remove Underline in Excel

Q: How do I remove underline in Excel?

Select the cells and press Ctrl + U on Windows or Cmd + U on Mac to toggle the font underline off. You can also click the Underline button in the Home → Font group, or open Format Cells with Ctrl + 1 and set the Underline drop-down to None.

Q: How do I remove the line at the bottom of a cell that isn't an underline?

That line is a bottom border. Select the cells, go to Home → Font, click the arrow beside the Borders button, and choose No Border. A font underline only runs as wide as the text, whereas a border runs the full width of the cell.

Q: How can I remove all underlines and formatting at once?

Select the cells and use Home → Clear → Clear Formats. This removes font underlines, Accounting underlines, borders, and other formatting in one step while keeping your data. Hyperlinks may still need Remove Hyperlink to drop the link itself.

To remove a font underline in Excel, select the cells and press Ctrl + U (Windows) or Cmd + U (Mac) to toggle it off. If the line stays put, you are not looking at a font underline at all — it is most likely a hyperlink, an Accounting number style, or a bottom cell border, and each of those is removed a different way.

That distinction is the single most common reason people get stuck. Below you will find the quick toggle, the precise Format Cells method, and a clear way to identify and clear every other kind of line that looks like an underline.

The fastest way: the underline toggle

The underline you apply with the toolbar is character formatting, exactly like bold or italic. It turns on and off with the same control.

Select the cell, range, column, or row that contains the underlined text.
On the Home tab, find the Font group.
Click the Underline button (the U with a line beneath it). If the cells are underlined, one click removes it.

The keyboard equivalent is Ctrl + U on Windows and Cmd + U on Mac. The button and the shortcut are toggles, so the same action that adds the underline also takes it away. This works for a single cell or thousands of cells at once — select everything first, then toggle. It is the same logic you use to remove strikethrough or a cell highlight from a selection.

If you only want to wipe the underline while leaving the line visible nowhere, that is all you need. Read on if it did not work.

Using Format Cells for precise control

When you want to confirm exactly what underline style is applied — single, double, or one of the Accounting variants — open the Format Cells dialog.

Select the cells.
Press Ctrl + 1 (Windows) or Cmd + 1 (Mac) to open Format Cells. You can also right-click and choose Format Cells.
Go to the Font tab.
Open the Underline drop-down and choose None.
Click OK.

The drop-down lists five options: None, Single, Double, Single Accounting, and Double Accounting. Setting it to None clears whatever was there. This is the surest method because it shows you the current setting rather than blindly toggling, and it is the same dialog you reach when you format cells for numbers, alignment, or fill color.

Removing underlines that are not font underlines

If Ctrl + U does nothing, the line is coming from somewhere else. Here is how to identify and remove each one.

Hyperlink underlines

When you type an email address or web address, Excel auto-converts it into a hyperlink and styles it as blue underlined text. Toggling Ctrl + U will not reliably clear it because the look comes from the built-in Hyperlink cell style.

You have two choices. To keep the clickable link but lose the styling, change the look of the Hyperlink cell style: on the Home tab, open the Cell Styles gallery, right-click Hyperlink, choose Modify, click Format, and set the underline to None on the Font tab. To remove the link entirely, right-click the cell and choose Remove Hyperlink, or select the range and use the same command. See the full walkthrough on how to remove a hyperlink in Excel. If you later need to put a working link back, here is how to add a hyperlink.

Accounting underlines

The Accounting number format draws a thin single or double line at the bottom of a cell to separate subtotals and totals. It looks like an underline but it is part of the number format, not the font, so Ctrl + U leaves it untouched.

To remove it, select the cells, open Format Cells with Ctrl + 1 (or Cmd + 1), and on the Font tab set Underline to None — the Accounting underline styles live in that same drop-down. If the line is instead coming from a total-row cell style, you can clear it by applying a plain style; this is the flip side of how you apply a total cell style in the first place.

Cell borders that look like underlines

A bottom border is the lookalike that fools most people. It is drawn on the cell edge, not under the text, so it spans the full width of the cell and never moves no matter what you do to the font.

To remove it, select the cells, go to Home → Font, click the arrow next to the Borders button, and choose No Border. The detailed steps are in our guide to removing borders in Excel, and if you want to add borders deliberately instead, see how to add a border. One quick tell: a font underline only runs as wide as the text, while a bottom border runs edge to edge.

When in doubt: Clear All Formatting

If you cannot work out which kind of line you are facing — or you simply want a blank slate — clear every bit of formatting at once.

Select the cells.
On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click Clear (the eraser icon).
Choose Clear Formats.

This strips font underlines, Accounting underlines, borders, fill colors, and font choices in a single move while leaving your data intact. Hyperlinks are the one exception — Clear Formats removes the link styling but you may still need Remove Hyperlink to drop the link itself. For more on this command, see how to clear formatting in Excel.

To copy a known-clean cell’s formatting onto messy cells instead of clearing, the Format Painter is faster than redoing everything by hand.

Windows vs Mac shortcut reference

Action	Windows	Mac
Toggle font underline on/off	Ctrl + U	Cmd + U
Open Format Cells dialog	Ctrl + 1	Cmd + 1
Apply double underline (via dialog)	Ctrl + 1 → Font tab	Cmd + 1 → Font tab
Bold (related toggle)	Ctrl + B	Cmd + B
Italic (related toggle)	Ctrl + I	Cmd + I
Open the macro editor (VBA)	Alt + F11	Opt + F11

The Home → Font Underline button works identically on both platforms, so if you prefer clicking over shortcuts, the ribbon path is the same regardless of operating system.

Troubleshooting

Ctrl + U does nothing. The line is not a font underline. Work through the three lookalikes above: try Remove Hyperlink first, then check Format Cells for an Accounting style, then check Borders for a bottom border.

The line spans the whole cell, even empty cells. That is a bottom border, not an underline. Use Home → Borders → No Border.

Only links are underlined. Those are hyperlinks. Modify the Hyperlink cell style or remove the links.

Underlines come back after I retype. Excel is auto-formatting addresses into hyperlinks. Press Ctrl + Z immediately after Excel converts the text, or turn the behavior off under File → Options → Proofing → AutoCorrect Options → AutoFormat As You Type.

I removed underlines but the font still looks wrong. Underline is independent of typeface and size. Adjust those separately, or reset the workbook default font under Excel options if every new sheet looks off — see setting the default font.

Removing underlines with VBA

For a recurring cleanup across many sheets, a one-line macro clears font underlines from any selection. Press Alt + F11 (Windows) or Opt + F11 (Mac) to open the Visual Basic Editor, insert a new module, and paste:

Selection.Font.Underline = xlUnderlineStyleNone

Run it with the cells selected and every font underline in the range disappears. Note this only touches font underlines — Accounting styles, borders, and hyperlinks need the methods described above.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I remove underline in Excel?

Select the cells and press Ctrl + U on Windows or Cmd + U on Mac to toggle the font underline off. You can also click the Underline button in the Home → Font group, or open Format Cells with Ctrl + 1 and set the Underline drop-down to None.

Why won’t the underline go away when I press Ctrl + U?

Because it is not a font underline. Ctrl + U only affects character underlining. If the line stays, it is almost certainly a hyperlink, an Accounting number style, or a bottom cell border — each cleared a different way, as covered above. Start by checking whether the cell is a link.

How do I get rid of the underline under a hyperlink in Excel?

Either remove the link entirely by right-clicking the cell and choosing Remove Hyperlink, or keep the link but change its look by modifying the Hyperlink cell style under Home → Cell Styles and setting its underline to None. See our remove hyperlink guide for both routes.

How do I remove the line at the bottom of a cell that isn’t an underline?

That line is a bottom border. Select the cells, go to Home → Font, click the arrow beside the Borders button, and choose No Border. A font underline only runs as wide as the text, whereas a border runs the full width of the cell.

How do I remove an Accounting underline in Excel?

The single and double Accounting underlines are part of the number format, not the font. Open Format Cells with Ctrl + 1 (or Cmd + 1), go to the Font tab, and set the Underline drop-down to None.

How can I remove all underlines and formatting at once?

Select the cells and use Home → Clear → Clear Formats. This removes font underlines, Accounting underlines, borders, and other formatting in one step while keeping your data. Hyperlinks may still need Remove Hyperlink to drop the link itself.