Excel Freeze Panes: Top Row, First Column or Both, and Unfreeze

Three commands under View > Freeze Panes

The commands sit on the View tab. Freeze Top Row keeps row 1 in view. Freeze First Column keeps column A in view. The plain Freeze Panes command locks everything above and to the left of the cell you selected.

Microsoft's newer page for Microsoft 365, Excel for Mac and Excel for the web also describes a Freeze up to command, which freezes up to a chosen row and column. If you cannot find the View tab at all, Microsoft says you are probably using Excel Starter, which does not support all features.

The cell you click decides what freezes

Freeze Panes locks the rows above and the columns to the left of the selected cell. The selected cell itself, and everything below and to its right, still scrolls.

Microsoft gives one example: to freeze the first two columns, select column C, then use View > Freeze Panes > Freeze Panes. To freeze rows and columns together, select the cell below the rows and to the right of the columns you want to keep visible.

A worked example: a price list with headings in row 1 and item names in column A

Say the sheet has headings in A1:H1 and 400 items in A2:A401. You want the headings and the item names to stay on screen.

Step 1: click B2. It is below row 1 and to the right of column A. Step 2: choose View > Freeze Panes > Freeze Panes. Now row 1 and column A stay put while you scroll to row 401 or column H.

If the headings are in rows 1 to 3 instead, click B4. Row 4 is the first row below the headings. If you also want the first two columns, A and B, click C4.

Compare with the shortcut commands: Freeze Top Row would lock row 1 alone, and Freeze First Column would lock column A alone. To lock both with the one-click commands you cannot, which is why the cell-based command exists.

Freeze Panes against Split: one locks, one scrolls separately

Split is a different command in the View > Window group. Microsoft's example is a 5-K race sheet. To compare Tomas in row 180 with the top 10 finishers, select row 13 so that rows 1 to 12 stay pinned, then choose View > Window > Split. The lower pane scrolls on its own and the top rows stay in view above.

Click Split again to remove it. You can split by columns by selecting the column to the right of the split point, or by both by selecting the cell below and to the right. Microsoft's wording gives D5 as the example for columns A to C and rows 1 to 4. Excel allows up to 4 panes in a window, according to Microsoft's specifications page.

In VBA, the Window.FreezePanes property is True when split panes are frozen. Microsoft notes that FreezePanes can be True while Split is False, or the other way round, and that it applies only to worksheets and macro sheets.

How to unfreeze

Choose View > Freeze Panes > Unfreeze Panes. After unfreezing, the whole sheet scrolls again. Only Microsoft's first page (for Excel 365, 2024, 2021, 2019 and 2016) covers this step. The second page, written for Microsoft 365, Excel for Mac and Excel for the web, does not mention unfreezing.

Common mistakes

Picking the wrong cell is the usual slip. Freeze Panes locks what is above and to the left of the cell, so choosing A1 locks nothing above or beside it, while choosing C4 locks rows 1 to 3 and columns A and B. When the headings are not in row 1, click the cell under the last heading row instead of using Freeze Top Row, which is for the top row only.

What the official pages do not say matters too. They state no limit on how many rows or columns you can freeze, so none is given here. They do not describe printing or protected sheets either. If a frozen area fills your screen and you cannot work out why, Crade can read your screen and show which row is locked.

Google Sheets: View > Freeze, then pick how many

On a computer, select a row or column, then choose View > Freeze and select how many rows or columns to freeze. To remove a freeze, choose View > Freeze > No rows or No columns.

On Android, touch and hold a row or column and choose the freeze option from the menu. Google's page does not state a limit and does not mention merged cells.

Who it suits

Freezing suits long tables where headings scroll out of view, such as a 400-row price list, and sheets with long item names in column A. It does not suit a sheet where you want two areas to scroll independently, which is what Split is for. A worksheet holds 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns, so long sheets are where headings are lost fastest.