Track changes in Spreadsheets

Track Changes allows document owners to view any additions, changes, or removals made by collaborators. Owners can approve or reject changes for a streamlined review process. 

Enable track changes

Track Changes allows you to follow changes to a spreadsheet by showing how the document has changed. If you or another document owner would like to view changes made to your spreadsheet, you can enable Track Changes.

Note: Only Document Owners can enable Track Changes.

To enable Track Changes:

1. Open the Review toolbar.
2. Toggle Track Changes on.

View tracked changes

After you enable track changes, you’ll see changes marked accordingly.

1. Removals are marked with a red pin.
2. Changes (locations where text has been both added and removed) are noted with a purple pin.
3. Additions are in blue with an underline and a blue pin.

To see removed text within your spreadsheet, you can change your View Mode. From the Review toolbar, select an icon to change your view. Show pins shows deletions as a red pin, while Show all changes shows the removed text.

If you’d like to see your spreadsheet with changes accepted, select the Hide changes mode. 

You can jump between changes by clicking the Previous or Next buttons in the Review toolbar, or by opening the Track Changes panel. Clicking a change in the panel highlights the change in the spreadsheet.

Note: Changes to the outline, links, text formatting, and deleted rows/columns are not tracked.

A blue vertical line to the left of a sheet in the document outline indicates that section contains tracked changes.

Accept or reject individual changes

Document owners can accept or reject individual tracked changes.

To accept or reject an individual change:

1. Open the Track Changes panel.
2. Select a change.
3. Click the Approve or Reject buttons.

You can also accept or reject changes by right-clicking a change in the document and choosing Approve or Reject from the menu. Once accepted or rejected, the change indicators disappear.

Accept or reject all changes

You can accept or reject changes at the section or document level via the Approval icon in the toolbar. When you accept or reject tracked changes en mass, you can’t undo this action.

Exporting documents with track changes to .xlsx or .csv display as if all track changes are accepted. This does not accept all changes in your document.