Microsoft faced a near-impossible task when designing Excel’s UI. The app has to cater to everyone from high-level corporate accountants and engineers to students and casual list-makers. Because the software tries to please everyone out of the box, the default ribbon comes overloaded with dozens of features that simply aren’t part of my workflow.
This universal approach creates unnecessary visual clutter. Every time I switched tabs, I found myself scanning past commands I rarely or never used before reaching the ones I actually needed. While hunting for a command only takes a second or two, those tiny delays quietly added up, creating unnecessary friction in my workflow over weeks and months. That’s when I realized Excel’s ribbon was designed to be customized, so I didn’t have to accept the default layout forever.

I removed the tools I never used

Less clutter made my favorite commands easier to find

The first thing I did was remove the parts of the ribbon that were getting in my way. While you can’t remove individual tools from Excel’s built-in groups, you can remove entire groups that you never use. I didn’t try to build the perfect layout immediately—I spent 10 minutes removing the obvious clutter first, then made a few small refinements as I discovered which commands deserved a permanent place.

Despite sounding like a complicated task, cleaning up the ribbon only took a few clicks:

1. Right-click any area on the ribbon.
2. Click Customize the Ribbon.
3. In the right-hand menu, expand the tab you want to simplify and select the group you no longer need.
4. Click Remove to remove the group from your ribbon, then repeat for any other groups that only create clutter.
5. Click OK to apply your changes.

Excel remembers this new custom layout, so there’s no need to repeat the process for every new workbook.

Removing these groups felt like decluttering a physical desk. I removed sections containing features I rarely or never use, such as the Cells group in the Home tab, Text in the Insert tab, Forecast in the Data tab, Language in the Review tab, and Workbook Views in the View tab. I also removed single-tool groups like Links in the Insert tab because I almost always use the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+K) instead. The result was a streamlined layout where every remaining option earned its place.

I hid the tabs I never opened

My ribbon became much cleaner almost instantly

After removing unnecessary groups, I looked for bigger sources of clutter. Excel lets you hide entire tabs from the ribbon, which is useful for features you rarely need but don’t want permanently taking up space. This gave me a cleaner starting point every time I opened a workbook.

Hiding tabs takes just as little effort as removing groups:

1. Click Customize the Ribbon again.
2. Make sure Main Tabs is selected in the right-hand menu.
3. Uncheck the tabs you rarely use.
4. Click OK.