how to unhide an open excel workbook

Question

i want to know how i can unhide a hidden excel macro

Answer 1

Hello Lennart Lindström

First, please kindly check the Q&A Assist first and feel free to give me an update after trying them. I will have some additional detail to add into this.

If you’re trying to “unhide a macro,” it’s a bit different from unhiding a sheet.

• Macros themselves aren’t shown like worksheets. They’re stored as VBA code inside the file.
• If the macro is in a hidden workbook, go to View > Unhide and open it first, then access the macro.
• To see or edit the macro, press Alt + F11 to open the VBA editor and look under Modules or the workbook project.
• If a sheet was hidden by a macro using a special setting (like “very hidden”), it won’t appear in the normal Unhide list and must be made visible through VBA

I hope to hear update from you soon; I'll be happy to help.

Answer 2

To unhide things in Excel, it is important to distinguish between:

• A hidden workbook window
• Hidden worksheets
• Macros/VBA code (which can be hidden or made “very hidden”)

Unhide a hidden workbook window

1. Open Excel.
2. Go to the View tab.
3. In the Window group, select Unhide.
4. In the Unhide dialog, select the workbook and select OK.

If Unhide is unavailable, there are no hidden workbook windows in the current Excel session.

On Mac:

1. Use the Window menu on the menu bar.
2. Select Unhide, then choose the workbook.

Unhide hidden worksheets (normal hidden)

1. Right-click any visible sheet tab at the bottom.
2. Select Unhide.
3. In the Unhide dialog, select the sheet(s) and select OK.

Or via ribbon:

1. Select the sheet(s) to unhide (if using the dialog, any visible sheet tab is fine).
2. On the Home tab, select Format.
3. Under Visibility, select Hide & Unhide > Unhide Sheet.
4. Choose the sheet(s) and select OK.

Unhide a sheet that was hidden with VBA as xlVeryHidden

If a macro or VBA code has set a sheet’s Visible property to xlVeryHidden, it will not appear in the Unhide dialog. It must be made visible again via VBA:

Example macro to unhide a specific sheet:

Sub UnhideSheet()
    Sheets("Sheet1").Visible = True
End Sub

Example macro to hide a sheet again:

Sub HideSheet()
    Sheets("Sheet1").Visible = False
End Sub

Example macro to make a sheet “very hidden” (only VBA can unhide it):

Sub VeryHiddenSheet()
    Sheets("Sheet1").Visible = xlVeryHidden
End Sub

If the macro itself (VBA project) is password-protected, the password is required to view or edit the code, but the code can still be run if it is already in the workbook.

Unhide all worksheets via automation (Power Automate Desktop example)

If many sheets are hidden (including by macros), a script can unhide them all:

1. In Power Automate for desktop, set a variable (for example, ExcelFile) with the full path to the workbook.
2. Use Run VBScript with code like:

'Opens the Excel file
Set objExcel = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
Set objWorkbook = objExcel.Workbooks.Open("%ExcelFile%")
objExcel.Application.Visible = True

'Unhides all the worksheets of the Excel file
For i = 1 To objWorkbook.Sheets.Count
    objWorkbook.Sheets(i).Visible = True
Next

'Saves and closes the Excel file
objWorkbook.Save
objWorkbook.Close SaveChanges = True

This makes every sheet visible again, regardless of how it was hidden.

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References:

• Hide or Unhide worksheets
• Unhide worksheets in Excel using VBScript
• Hide sheets and use the xlVeryHidden constant in a macro
• Remove hidden data and personal information by inspecting documents, presentations, or workbooks