How to stop Excel from auto formatting hyperlinks

In this short article, I'll show you how you can quickly remove all unwanted hyperlinks from an Excel worksheet at once and prevent their occurrence in the future. The solution works in all Excel versions starting from Excel 2003 through modern Excel 2021 and desktop Excel included in Microsoft 365.

Every time you type an e-mail address or URL in a cell, Excel automatically converts it into a clickable hyperlink. From my experience, this behavior is annoying rather than helpful :-(
So after typing a new email to my table or editing a URL and pressing Enter, I usually press Ctrl+Z to remove the hyperlink that Excel automatically created…

First I'll show how you can delete all accidently created unnecessary hyperlinks, and then how you can configure your Excel to turn off the Auto-Hyperlinking feature.

Remove multiple hyperlinks in all Excel versions

In Excel 2000-2007, there is no built-in function to delete multiple hyperlinks at a time, only one by one. Here is a simple trick that lets you overcome this limitation, of course, the trick works in Excel 2019, 2016, and 2013 too.

How to delete all hyperlinks in 2 clicks (Excel 2021 – 2010)

In Excel 2010, Microsoft finally added the ability to remove multiple hyperlinks at a time:

• Select the entire column with Hyperlinks: click on any cell with data and press Ctrl+Space.
• Right-click on any selected cell and select "Remove hyperlinks" from the context menu.

  Note: If you select a single cell, then this menu item changes to "Remove hyperlink", a nice example of usability :-(

  

• All hyperlinks are removed from the column :-)
  

Disable automatic creation of hyperlinks in Excel

Now, type any URL or email to any cell - Excel retains the plain text format :-)
When you really need to create a hyperlink, simply press Ctrl+K to open the "Insert Hyperlink" dialog box.

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Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 20, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021

When you enter a Web address or a LAN server address of a file into an Excel cell, it automatically converts to a hyperlink when you leave the cell. This is part of the "Web-aware behavior" of Excel.

If you want to turn off the automatic conversion, you can follow these steps:

1. Display the Excel Options dialog box. (In Excel 2007 click the Office button and then click Excel Options. In Excel 2010 and later versions display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.)
2. Click Proofing at the left of the dialog box.
3. Click the AutoCorrect Options button. Excel displays the AutoCorrect dialog box.
4. Make sure the AutoFormat As You Type tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)


Figure 1. The AutoFormat As You Type tab of the AutoCorrect dialog box.

5. Clear the Internet and Network Paths With Hyperlinks check box.
6. Click OK.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (6245) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Excel in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Turning Off Hyperlink Activation.

Author Bio

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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