Filtering by Color in Google Sheets

Sometimes when I’m working on a project in Google Sheets, I shade cells a certain color to visually organize them. I’ve always wished that there was a way to just see the green ones.  Or the red ones.  Or the yellow ones.  Sure, I could add some kind of indicator in a separate cell that I can filter by, but I wished that I could just do it by color.

Well, now I can! Recently, Google added the ability to filter and sort based on the cell color and the font color. Check out how it works with filtering in the EduGIF below! The step-by-step instructions are underneath the EduGIF.

Before I share the step-by-step instructions, one last note. In the EduGIF, I did not share the process of sorting by color. When sorting by color, you’re selecting the color group (red, green, or white, in my GIF) that will come first. The other colors are then grouped after that. Within the color groups, the values will also be sorted in the default format (largest number to smallest number, in my data set).

Here are the step-by-step instructions for filtering by color:

1. Highlight the range of columns or cells that you’d like to apply the filter to. You can select all of the cells using the square in the top-left corner.
2. Click the filter button on the toolbar. It’s the one that looks like a funnel.
3. The top cells in the area that you highlighted previously will now have a filter icon. In the column that you’d like to sort by, click that icon.
4. Go down to filter by color.
5. Select either fill color or text color depending on which situation you have.
6. Select the color that you’d like to see by itself.
7. When done, follow the steps above and click none or turn off the filter by clicking the button that you clicked in step 2.