You can use comments to leave remarks and collaborate with others in a spreadsheet, including @ mentioning others to notify collaborators.
Add a comment
To add a comment in a spreadsheet:
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- Single-click a cell or group of cells.
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- Right-click the selection and choose Add Comment from the dropdown menu.
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- In the Comments panel, type your comment.
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- Click Post to add your comment.
Note: If you're working in an ESG workspace, all comments will be sorted in the read order of the document. This will be updated for all customers soon.
You can mention both individual users and workspace groups to notify them directly about your comment. Type @ in the comment box to view a list of users and existing groups, including document owners, editors, or viewers.
Manage comments
You can use the Comments panel to manage your spreadsheet's comments. If you are a document owner, you can create, reply to, resolve, move, and delete comments. If you are an editor or viewer, you can perform any of these actions but can only delete your own comments.
To manage comments:
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- Hover over a comment in the Comments panel.
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- Click the arrow.
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- Select an option from the dropdown menu.
You can edit an existing comment by clicking the pencil icon. To reply to a comment, type your response in the text field.
Note: If you're working in an ESG workspace, margin and panel comments won't open at the same time. This will be applied in all workspaces soon.
Navigate between comments
When someone comments on a sheet, the comment icon appears next to the sheet in the document outline as well as in a circle to the left of the comment in the Comments panel.
To move through your comments, use the Move Up and Move Down arrows at the top of the Comments panel. You can view a comment’s selection in the document by clicking the Jump to Location icon.
Blue triangle outlines in the spreadsheet indicate there are comments for that cell.
When you click highlighted content while the Comments panel is open, the corresponding comment automatically expands in the Comments panel.
Delete multiple or all comments
In the Comments panel, you can delete a selected comment, resolved comments, or all comments. Within Home, you can select multiple comments to delete. When comments are deleted, any replies within the comment thread are also deleted.
Delete multiple comments in your file
Only spreadsheet owners have access to delete all comments and delete resolved comments. However, if all of the active comments and/or resolved comments that exist in the spreadsheet were created by a single user, these options for deleting comments would be available for this user, because they are the creator.
Within the comments panel, there are three options for deleting comments:
- Delete selected comment: Delete the comment that is currently selected.
- Delete resolved comments: Delete all comments that have been marked as resolved.
- Delete all comments: Delete all comments in the file.
Before deleting resolved comments or all comments, you’ll need to type “Delete” to confirm.
Note: Deleting a selected comment, resolved comments, or all comments can’t be undone.
Delete multiple comments from Home
From the Comments tab in Home, you can select multiple comments to delete, but a comment will only be deleted successfully if you were the creator of the comment, or if the comment lives in a file in which you have owner permissions.
To delete multiple comments from Home:
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- Select the Comments tab.
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- Mark the checkbox to the left of each comment you want to delete.
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- Select the trash icon in the top right corner.
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- To confirm that you want to delete the selected comments, type “Delete”.
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- Select Delete.
Note: Deleting multiple comments can't be undone.
For ESG workspaces
Note: If you’re working in an ESG workspace, your experience might look different. The updated experience will be available to all customers soon.
You can access deleting by clicking on the three dots in the Comments panel and hover over Delete.
Before deleting resolved comments or all comments, you’ll need to type the specified words to confirm.
Note: Deleting a selected comment, resolved comments, or all comments can’t be undone.
Filter comments
To filter your comments, click the Filter icon in the Comments panel. Use the radio buttons at the top of the panel to show comments for your entire document or just the selected sheet.
Reset your filters by clicking Reset Filters at the bottom of the filter window.
For ESG workspaces
Note: If you’re working in an ESG workspace, your experience might look different. The updated experience will be available to all customers soon.
To apply a filter:
-
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- Open the Comments panel.
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- Click the Filter icon.
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- Select how you want to filter your comments.
You can use the Quick filter to quickly through filter comments:
- All - Includes all of the filters below.
- All mine - Filters for discussions that I was a part of.
- By me - Filters for comments written by me.
- My mentions - Filters for comments that @mentioned me.
You can also filter through these items:
- Toggle on Unread to only look at unread comments.
- Show for shows comments for the whole document or just the current section
- Content allows you to search for keywords or phrases within comments.
- Status filters comments by open or resolved.
- Labels filters for comments assigned to specific labels.
- Source filters for comments related to this document or just in reviews.
- Author shows comments made by a particular user.
The Reset button tells you how many filters have been added. You can click on it to reset all of your filters. Click Done to apply your filters.
Disconnected comments
If the text your comment is connected to is removed from your spreadsheet, a disconnected icon appears next to the comment in the Comments panel. The comment's original selection (up to 400 characters) also appears in the comment card.
To reconnect your comment, select a new cell in your document and select Reconnect Comment in the Comments panel.
Manage email notification
To manage when you get notified about comments, you can edit your comment thread notification preferences.
To edit your notifications, click the bell icon in the Comments panel or the Manage these notifications link in your email.
You can choose between three options:
- Replies to threads I’m participating in sends you an email any time someone replies in a comment thread you’ve previously replied to or were tagged in
- Only my @ mentions only notifies you when someone tags your username, a group you’re a member of, or specifically uses the @thread tag
- All comments on this document notifies you any time there is a comment made of any type, including replies and mentions.
Note: This only applies to your comment notifications on this file and does not impact other users.
Notifications are set independently for each file, so you can customize your notification settings on each individual document.