How do I remove user name from a comment in excel for Mac?

Question

When I add a comment in excel, my user name is added, which I don't want as this will be a generic customer file. I'm using Excel for Mac and I cannot find any solutions that work.

Answer 1

Dear Camilla Parflo

Thank you for posting your question on the Q&A forum. I understand your concern about the user name appearing in comments, especially since you're preparing a generic customer file.

If you're using a newer version of Excel for Mac, it likely uses threaded comments, which automatically include the author name. While this can't be removed directly, there is a workaround that may help:

• Go to Excel > Preferences >General > Under Personalize, change the User name to something generic (e.g., "Customer Support" or simply use a dash -) and tick the option "Always use this name regardless of how I'm signed into" > Click OK.

If you're unsure whether your version uses threaded or legacy comments, you can also try this VBA code to remove author names from legacy comments. To enable and use the VBA macro in Excel, first make sure the Developer tab is visible. If it’s not, go to Excel > Preferences > Ribbon & Toolbar, check Developer, and save the changes. Then open the Visual Basic Editor from the Developer tab. In the editor, choose Insert > Module and paste the following code into the module window:

Sub RemoveAuthorFromComments()
    Dim ws As Worksheet
    Dim cmt As Comment
    For Each ws In ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets
        For Each cmt In ws.Comments
            cmt.Text Text:=Replace(cmt.Text, Application.UserName & ":", "")
        Next cmt
    Next ws
End Sub

Close the editor, return to the Developer tab, select Macros, choose RemoveAuthorFromComments, and click Run. This will remove your username from all comments in the active workbook when using legacy Excel. If nothing changes after running the macro, you’re likely using the new Excel with modern threaded comments, which this code does not affect.

I know this may not be exactly what you were hoping for, especially if you're working with threaded comments. Microsoft currently doesn’t allow removing the author name from those. If this is something you'd like to see improved, I encourage you to share your feedback on the Feedback Portal. Your input helps shape future updates!

Thanks again for raising this question.

---

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment". 

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.