How to Move Columns in Excel: Swap or Switch Columns (2023)

If you’re working with Excel tables more often, you may need to move your data columns every now and then 😀

Maybe you want to swap columns to restructure your tables or you want to move columns to view data side by side for comparison.

In Excel, there’s no straightforward way to do this but that doesn’t mean you can’t 😉

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to move columns in Excel in many ways possible so you can restructure your tables in Excel like a PRO 💪

Download this free practice workbook and let’s move forward!

Move columns with the Shift key

When you move a column to a new location, Microsoft Excel will send you this message:

If you click OK, you may lose the data in the column you want to move to 😥

And we don’t want that.

There’s a way for you to move Excel columns without losing existing data in your Excel spreadsheet. Just swap or switch your Excel columns with the help of the Shift key.

Here’s how 👇

Say you want the First Name to be the first column in this data table. To do that…

1. Click the column that you want to move.

In our practice workbook, click Column B.

This selects the entire column B.

When you move your cursor to the edge of the selection, it would display the move icon (a four-directional arrow icon).

💡 For the next steps, remember to press Shift always while doing the drag and drop.

2. Hold down the Shift key and click on either the right or left border of the selection with your left mouse button.

3. Drag and drop it to the column where you want this row to be shifted.

When you see a bold line to the edge of the column where you want to move this column, release your left mouse button.

You can now also release the Shift key.

See? No existing data is lost. You just swapped the two columns 👏

Moving Excel columns is easy!

Just remember to press the shift key at all times while doing the drag-and-drop method 😊

You are not limited to moving one column. Of course, you can move more than one column in Excel as long as they are contiguous columns.

To swap multiple columns, you just need to select multiple columns in the spreadsheet and do the drag-and-drop method.

Move columns with cut and paste

You can also move columns with the use of the Cut and Paste commands you’re already familiar with 😀

Note that there are a few things to remember here depending on whether you want to move a single column or multiple columns at a time.

Let’s just move a single column for now 👍

1. Right-click on the column header to select the entire column. To be specific, right-click column B.
2. Select Cut from the right-click context menu.

💡 Alternatively, you can click the column letter or header to select the entire column then press Ctrl + X. Ctrl + X is the keyboard shortcut for the Cut command.

This will copy the entire column.

3. Right-click on the column header to which you want to insert the Cut column. In our example, column A.
4. Click Insert Cut Cells from the right-click context menu.

There you have it 🙌

When you click the Insert Cut Cells option, you actually pasted the column you copied to your desired location.

Then the rest of the columns moved right.

Rearrange columns with horizontal sorting

You have probably heard about the Data Sort feature in Excel which allows you to sort your Excel tables. Usually, you vertically sort data in Excel.

But have you wondered if you can horizontally sort data too? 🤔

Yes, you can! More than that, you can use the Sort feature to rearrange your columns with horizontal sorting.

If you have a large spreadsheet and you want to change the order of numerous columns, horizontal sorting data could be a major time saver 👍

To start, you need to add a new row to the very top of your Excel spreadsheet. So…

1. Right-click row header 1.
2. Select Insert from the right-click menu.

A new row is inserted in your worksheet.

This row must be at the top of the page, above all other header rows or labels.

3. Number the existing columns in the order you want them to appear in the spreadsheet. Enter the numbers in the new top row.

4. Select all the data in the table that you want to rearrange.

5. Go to the Data Tab.
6. In the Sort & Filter Group, click Sort.

The Sort Dialog box appears on your screen.

7. Click the Options button.

8. Select Sort left to right.
9. Click OK.

This returns you to the Sort dialog box.

10. In the Sort By drop-down menu, select Row 1.
11. Finally, click OK.

This is now the result ✅

The columns are now rearranged according to the order in which you wanted them to appear.

Now that the columns are rearranged, you can delete the very first row.

And voila! 😀

That’s it – Now what?

Congratulations! Now that you’ve learned how to move columns in Excel, you can smoothly move or swap columns in your Excel tables 😎

You can now restructure your Excel tables without losing your important data in the process like an Excel Pro.

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Other resources

Curious about the SORT feature in Excel? Click this link to find out how it can powerfully change your data and columns in Excel.

Do you need to turn the rows of your Excel table into columns instead?

You don’t need to recreate your table when you can just transpose data in Excel. Click here to learn how 😊

Frequently asked questions