When you work on a big spreadsheet, it’s a great resource to be able to navigate it quickly without always using the mouse.
But how do you quickly move in a google sheet? there’s a go-to cell in Google Sheets?
I had the same question, and couldn’t find the answer on the google sheet menu. But finally, I found the solution, so here it is for you!
Quickly moving around in google sheet
If you worked with spreadsheets like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheet you may know shortcuts like using the Home and End key to go to start and end of a row. There are many handy shortcuts like these, some of them are:
| Action | Windows Shortcut | Mac Shortcut |
|---|---|---|
| Move to start of row | Home | Home |
| Move to end of row | End | End |
| Move to beginning of the sheet | Ctrl + Home | Command + Home |
| Move to end of sheet | Ctrl + End | Command + End |
| Move to last non-empty cell (Going right from actually selected cell) | Ctrl + Right Arrow | Command + Right Arrow |
| Move to last non-empty cell (Going right from actually selected cell) | Ctrl + Left Arrow | Command + Left Arrow |
You will find some of these and many other navigation shortcuts in the google spreadsheets documentation accessible with Ctrl + / or Command + /.
How to go to a cell in google sheet
We just saw how to move in a google sheet quickly, but what if we want to go to a specific cell? If we know the coordinates of a cell and want to move directly there, the previous shortcuts could not help us.
At the end of the Navigation Shortcuts, we can find a shortcut that can help us to go to a specific cell.
It’s the “Go to range” shortcut. The assigned key is the special function key F5, but probably in your case, it should be grayed out and not working.
This is due to the fact that there are some shortcuts, called “compatible spreadsheet shortcuts” that are disabled by default. Let’s see how to enable them so we can finally go to a cell in our google sheets.
How to enable compatible spreadsheet shortcuts
To enable compatible shortcuts you should at first open the Keyboard shortcuts window. So open your Google spreadsheet and then push the right shortcut (yes, a shortcut to enable other shortcuts 🙂 )
Windows/Linux
<Ctrl> + /
Mac
<Command> + /Once the Keyboard shortcuts window is opened you can find the switch to enable compatible shortcuts on the lower part of it. Here is a screenshot to help you find it just in case
You can also see in the screenshot the “Go to range” shortcut grayed out. Clicking on the switch will activate it. Once activated you can close the window and go back to your spreadsheet.
Now you should have the compatible shortcuts enabled, so you should be able to open the go-to range with the F5 key.
This article is part of our productivity tips for Google Sheets series. You can find them all on our Tips and tricks for Google Sheets page.
Go to range: how does it work
We said we can use the “Go to range” tool to move to a specific cell, but how does it work?
To go to a cell in your google spreadsheet you can now hit F5, insert the coordinates in the tool and then press enter. The coordinates should be in letter and number concatenated, without separators, for example, C5 or G15.
You can also use “Go to range” with… ranges!! So you can use it to directly select a range using two opposed corners.
For example, if you put C5:F8 in the Go to range tool and hit enter, you will select the cells between C5 and F8.
Conclusions
So we saw how to go to a cell in Google Sheets with a simple but effective shortcut. We also saw some other interesting navigation shortcuts to help you in optimizing your workflow.