Hiding and Unhiding Columns in Smartsheet

SSFeatures provides a simple popup for you to hide and unhide specific columns in Smartsheet.

The Problem with Unhiding Columns in Smartsheet

Smartsheet lacks the ability to unhide individual columns. Instead, it only offers an "Unhide All Columns" option, which forces you to unhide all columns in your sheet at once.

This limitation is frustrating for several reasons:

1. When you need to edit just one hidden column, Smartsheet forces you to unhide all columns, requiring you to manually re-hide those you didn’t need.
2. Tracking hidden columns is challenging since Smartsheet doesn’t provide a way to identify them.
3. Although you can manually drag to unhide a column, this changes its width. Smartsheet doesn’t allow you to unhide a single column without altering its size.

These issues hurt your team's productivity and create confusion and frustration. Users have been asking for a solution for years:

• Feature Request: Hidden Columns List (~400 votes)
• Feature Request: Unhide specific columns on a sheet (~200 votes)
• Feedback: "100% agree that having to unhide all columns is one of the most frustrating features in Smartsheet" - Stevey C
• Feedback: "Having to unhide all columns at once can be overwhelming for new users. From a developer stand point, it's horrible." - MichaelTCA
• Feedback "...it is desperately needed. The frustration of navigating around hidden columns by unhiding all is immense" - Nik Fuentes
• Feedback "PLEASE! I love this idea. I dislike needing to unhide ALL or guessing which ones to expand and then recalling which ones to then hide again when I am through with a review. " - Stkatch
• Feedback "Please implement this function. Unhide all is complete overkill, and very inefficient way to show the columns." -Bill Ketchel
• Feedback "It is frustrating to have to unhide every column when I would just like to unhide one. I then have to go through and rehide all the columns I don't want shown." - Smartsheetluvr

The Solution with SSFeatures

SSFeatures adds a "Hide / Unhide Columns" button in Smartsheet, opening a convenient popup to manage column visibility.

This popup shows you which columns are hidden or visible, allowing you to toggle visibility by clicking the checkbox. This is much faster than Smartsheet's "Unhide All Columns" button, especially on sheets with many columns.

You can click the arrow button to quickly jump to a column.

You can sort columns, display only hidden or visible ones, and filter by column name, making navigation and organization easy.

Lastly, you can save your column settings and load them again in the future. This is useful when you need to quickly hide and unhide groups of columns.

Demo Video

Frequently asked questions

• Can I share my column settings with my teammates?

  • No, due to privacy and security concerns, we do not upload any of your settings, column names, or any data to our servers. SSFeatures saves all of your settings locally within your browser storage, which means that we do not have access to any of your data, and cannot share your settings with your teammates.

• Can you tell me more about the security and privacy of this feature?

  • Absolutely. SSFeatures never sends any of your data outside your browser. SSFeatures directly calls Smartsheet's native code to manage hiding and unhiding columns. This is one of the key advantages of SSFeatures as a browser extension. SSFeatures optimizes privacy and security by leveraging Smartsheet's code, all while keeping your data entirely within your browser.