How to merge cells in Google Sheets

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TL;DR

• Merge cells horizontally to combine cells in the same row, vertically to combine cells in the same column, or merge all to combine a full block spanning multiple rows and columns.
• All three methods use the same Format > Merge cells menu in Google Sheets.
• Merging only keeps the value from the top-left cell, so it's best for headers and labels, not for data you plan to sort, filter, or build on top of.

Google Sheets offers several formatting features to help you organize and present data clearly, and merging cells is one of the most commonly used. It lets you combine adjacent cells into a single, larger cell, which is useful for creating headers, section titles, and cleaner-looking tables.

In this article, we'll walk through the three ways to merge cells in Google Sheets:

• Merging cells horizontally;
• Merging cells vertically;
• Merging cells across multiple rows and columns at once.

How to merge cells horizontally in Google Sheets

Merging cells horizontally means combining cells that belong to the same row. Here's how to do it.

Select the cells you want to merge

Click on one of the cells you want to merge, then drag your mouse over the rest of the range of cells you wish to merge.

On the Format menu, click "Merge horizontally"

At the top, click the Format menu, then Merge cells, and finally Merge horizontally.

The cells have been merged horizontally

Well done. You've merged the cells belonging to the same row into a single wider cell.

How to merge cells vertically in Google Sheets

Merging cells vertically means combining cells that belong to the same column. Follow these steps.

Select the cells you want to merge

Click on one of the cells you want to merge, then drag your mouse over the rest of the range of cells you wish to merge.

On the Format menu, click "Merge vertically"

At the top, click the Format menu, then Merge cells, and finally Merge vertically.

The cells have been merged vertically

Well done. You've merged the cells belonging to the same column into a single taller cell.

How to merge cells across rows and columns in Google Sheets

Unlike the two methods above, this one lets you merge cells that span different rows and columns at the same time. Here's how.

Select the cells you want to merge

Click on one of the cells you want to merge, then drag your mouse over the rest of the range of cells you wish to merge.

On the Format menu, click "Merge all"

At the top, click the Format menu, then Merge cells, and finally Merge all.

The cells have been merged

Well done. All the cells you selected are now merged into a single cell.

When merging cells starts working against you

Merged cells are great for making a report or a printed table easier to read, but they cause problems the moment your spreadsheet becomes something other people rely on daily. A merged header row can break sorting, filtering, and any formula that expects one value per cell. This is a common tipping point: once a sheet becomes the day-to-day operational backbone for more than a couple of people, formatting tricks like merged cells start creating more friction than they solve.

If that sounds like your spreadsheet, it might be time to turn it into a real internal tool or client portal. With Softr Databases, you keep your data clean and relational (linking related records instead of visually merging cells), and you can also connect an existing Google Sheet directly if you're not ready to migrate. Rather than manually rebuilding every table and permission from scratch, you can describe your data structure to Softr's AI Co-Builder and it will generate the tables, fields, and relationships for you, or you can build it visually yourself.

Turning your spreadsheet into an app also solves the security gap that merged cells can't touch. A spreadsheet only offers all-or-nothing file access, while a proper business app lets you filter records so each person only sees what's relevant to them, whether that's their own orders, their team's projects, or their client's account.