How to Freeze Cells in Google Sheets (The Easy Way!)

In this article we will show you how to freeze cells in google sheets using either the drag bar or the menu feature. Spreadsheet users commonly freeze cells to keep cells visible when scrolling and to prevent cells from being edited.

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How to Freeze Cells in Google Sheets Using Drag Bar

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This method involves moving the drag bar to freeze the topmost rows or the leftmost columns.

Step 1:  Move the cursor over the drag bar

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You can find a pair of drag bars on the upper-left corner of the sheet. Its color changes to blue when you move the cursor over it. You can use it to either freeze a row or a column: the horizontal drag bar is for freezing rows while the vertical drag bar is for freezing columns. 

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For our example we will move the cursor to the horizontal drag bar. 

Step 2: Click and drag the bar to freeze the selected cells

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Click the drag bar, then drag it either downward (if you want to freeze top rows) or drag it to the right (if you want to freeze leftmost columns). Note that the drag bars are limited in the directions you can drag them to: horizontal drag bars can only be moved up and down while vertical drag bars can only be moved left and right. 

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You now know how to freeze cells in Google Sheets.

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Screencap

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How to Freeze Cells in Google Sheets Using the Freeze Menu

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This method involves using the Freeze option under View option in the main menu. 

Step 1: Select the cells you want to freeze

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Step 2: Click View

Step 3: Select Freeze

Step 4: Select what columns or rows to freeze

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You can use the following options to freeze the cells:

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• 1 row/column - choose this if the cells are in the first row/column
• 2 rows/columns - choose this if the cells are in the first and second row/column
• Up to row/column - choose this if you want to freeze all rows/columns from Row 1/Column A to the row/column the cells are located

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For this step, we select Up to row 1.

The output will look like as follows:

Screencap 

Can you freeze cells in the middle of the sheet?

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No, not with these methods. if you try Method 2 while selecting cells in the middle of the sheet, Google Sheets will still freeze starting on the first row or column, as you can see in the screencap below. However, you can check out our tutorial to lock cells in Google Sheets to learn how to any cells or ranges in your spreadsheet.