One feature designed to help you look for important data more easily is the Google Sheets filter view. It allows you temporarily remove extraneous data and leave only the important categories for a given situation.
The advantage of using the filter view is that you don’t have to modify the data in the spreadsheet nor permanently hide columns and rows.
For our examples, we wish to add a few filter views on a long list of items sold during a certain week.
This guide will help you add filter views in Google Sheets that use a wide range of criteria to filter the rows in the sheet, plus how to edit the filter views and delete views.
To add a filter view, here are the steps:
Step 1. Click anywhere within the range of your Google Sheets, then click Data on the main menu.
Step 2. A drop-down list will appear. Select Filter views.
Step 3. Another drop-down list will appear on its right side. Click Create new filter view.
The sheet area will now look different.
To customize the name of the filter view, find the textbox beside the label Name: on the upper-left corner of the sheet. Type your chosen title.
If you look at the first row of your Google Sheets spreadsheet, they are automatically read as column headers with an inverted triangle appearing on the right end of each cell. If you click on the inverted triangle, a drop-down list of options for sorting and filtering will appear.
Step 1. Look for the column where you want to sort the entries, and click on the inverted triangle on the right end of the header cell.
Step 2. You have three options for sorting in Google Sheets: Sort A -> Z; Sort Z -> A; and Sort by color. For our example we want to sort the entries alphabetically, so we choose Sort A -> Z.
The entries are now sorted:
You can add a filter that follows a certain condition. For our Google Sheets example, we want to remove all profits less than $15.00 from our table view. To do so, here are the following steps:
Step 1. Look for the column where you want to filter the entries, and click on the inverted triangle on the right end of the header cell.
Step 2. Click Filter by condition. A long list of possible conditions will appear. The conditions are as follows:
You can also specify a custom formula. For our case, we choose the Greater than or equal to option. A text box will appear below where we can type the value.
Step 3. Click OK.
The sheet has now been filtered.
Sometimes we just want to list down the rows that include a certain value in a certain column. For example, we just want to list down all egg purchases listed in the sheet. To do so, here are the steps:
Step 1. Look for the Google Sheets column where you want to filter the entries, and click on the inverted triangle on the right end of the header cell.
Step 2. By default, the Filter by values is automatically “clicked” in Google Sheets, making the list of possible values visible. To list only the rows with the value 12-egg set, untick all other possible values.
Step 3. Click OK.
The sheet has now been filtered. By changing the ticked value, you can also change the table views that appear.
To exit a filter view in Google Sheets, simply click the x symbol on the upper-right corner of the sheet.
Here are the steps to select a different filter view in Google Sheets:
Step 1. Click Data on the main menu,
Step 2. Select Filter views.
Step 3. A list of existing filter views in Google Sheets will be shown. Simply click the existing filter view you want to use.
This shows why it is useful to name your filter views in Google Sheets, so that you can easily find them from the list.
Here are the steps to delete a filter view in Google Sheets:
Step 1. Click Data on the main menu,
Step 2. Select Filter views.
Step 3. A list of existing filter views will be shown. Simply click the existing filter view you want to delete.
Step 4. Click the gear symbol on the upper-right corner of the sheet.
Step 5. A drop-down list will appear. Click Delete.
The filter view no longer exists.
If you enjoyed this article, you might also like our article on how to add filters in Google Sheets or our article on how to filter by color in Google Sheets.
If you want to learn how to set Google Sheets reminders, we also suggest checking out our detailed guide.
