How to switch between workbooks in Excel on Mac

I have read in many pages that you can do that with CTRL-ALT, but it does not work in my case. I have two excel files open. When I do CTRL-ALT it goes from one file to the other!!! Then it goes somewhere (it is difficult to tell in excel where) and later goes back to the same workbook in the first excel.

It never goes to other workbooks of the first file.

I am using excel 2016.

In our daily work, we may work with multiple workbooks, to toggle between two workbooks may be easy for us, but, if there are multiple opened workbooks needed to be switched between from time to time, how could you switch between these multiple opened workbooks?

Switch between multiple opened workbooks with Switch Windows command

Switch between multiple opened workbooks with Quick Access Toolbar

Switch between multiple opened workbooks with shortcut keys

Switch between multiple opened workbooks with kutools for Excel

Switch between multiple opened workbooks with Office Tab

Switch between multiple opened workbooks with Switch Windows command

There is a command called Switch Windows in Excel, by using it, you can quickly switch between multiple workbooks.

In one of your opened workbook, click View > Switch Windows, and then from the Switch Windows drop down list, choose the workbook that you want to switch. See screenshot:

Switch between multiple opened workbooks with Quick Access Toolbar

With the above method, you need to toggle the tabs time and time again when you do other operations, here, I can help you to add the Switch Windows command to the Customize Quick Access Toolbar, and this will cut down your clicks. Please do as follows:

1. In the opened workbook, click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar in the Excel window, and then choose More Commands from the menu, see screenshot:

2. In the Excel Options dialog box, click Quick Access Toolbar from the left pane. Then select All Commands from the drop-down list under Choose commands from, scroll down and select Switch Windows, then click the Add>> button to move that command to the right-hand window. See screenshot:

3. Then click OK button, and you can see the Switch Windows command has been displayed in the Quick Access Toolbar, and you can switch between the workbooks easily with one click.

Switch between multiple opened workbooks with shortcut keys

If you like to use the keyboards, here also have shortcut keys for you to quickly toggle between multiple workbooks.

Holding the Ctrl + Tab keys together can help you move from one window to the next window, if you have only two windows, this method will be faster. However, with more than two opened workbooks, this method doesn’t work very well because it will cycle through each opened workbook.

Switch between multiple opened workbooks with kutools for Excel

If you have Kutools for Excel, with its Navigation utility, you can quickly switch between multiple workbooks and worksheets.

After installing Kutools for Excel, please do as following steps:

1. Click Kutools > Navigation, see screenshot:

2. In the Navigation pane, click Workbook & Sheet icon, and you can see all the opened workbooks are listed into the list box, you can switch between them quickly and conveniently.

Note: In the Navigation pane, you can also sort the opened workbooks in ascending or descending order with the

and

icons.

To know more about this powerful Navigation feature of kutools for Excel.

Download and free trial Kutools for Excel Now !

Switch between multiple opened workbooks with Office Tab

If you have installed Office Tab in your computer, it helps you view and edit multiple files within a single tabbed window, to know more about Office Tab Office Tab and download it (free trial in 30 days).

After installed Office Tab, and open multiple workbooks, you will see all the workbook names have been displayed within a single tabbed window as following screenshot shown, and then you can quickly switch among them by a click.

Demo: Switch between multiple opened workbooks

On a scale of 1-10, how annoying is it to switch back and forth between all your open spreadsheets? If you said anything higher than a 1, you’re doing it wrong!

In this video, I’m going to teach you how to switch between open spreadsheets (workbooks) WITHOUT touching the mouse, or minimizing and maximizing windows.

Download FREE Hands-On Exercises

I know you don’t mean to, but stop futzing around minimizing and maximizing windows and getting all confused when, really, you can keep your workbooks nice and big, and seamlessly switch between them with the shortcut I’m about to teach you.

When you have multiple spreadsheets or workbooks open, it’s really helpful to be able to move between them quickly. So, right now I have A open, but I want to switch between them, so I’m going to hit CTRL + TAB to move to the next one or the next one.

Now, if I keep going with CTRL + TAB, it’s going to cycle through. If I want to go in the reverse direction, I’m going to do CTRL + SHIFT + TAB to go in the opposite direction. Only really useful when you have a bunch open. That’s for PC.

For the Mac, it’s going to be COMMAND + `. What’s a grave, Shir? A grave is that key immediately to the left of the one. It’s got that reverse apostrophe thing going on, and it’s below the little tilde squiggle. So, the grave is the necessary piece. You hit COMMAND + `.

So, now, for the memory tricks. If you’re using the PC, control labs with control tab. Think of your lab as a workbook, right? Your little mad genius workstation here. That’s your lab. You want to control your lab with CTRL + TAB. That’s how you move to the next workbook. If you want to go in reverse, you hit the SHIFT, as well.

With the Mac, you want to window shop with gravitas. You’re window shopping because you’re switching between the different windows, and gravitas because you’re really serious and because you’re using the grave key. It’s pretty straightforward.

For this exercise that I created specifically for this purpose, you’re going to go ahead and start at the beginning. Move to the X that you want to move, hit CTRL + X on the PC or COMMAND + X on the Mac, do your shifting between the workbooks and actually find the spot, and then CTRL + V with the PC or COMMAND + V with the Mac to paste it in. And that is how you actually manage to practice all those things that we talked about.

Some Shir words of wisdom for you is to keep your screen very clutter-free. Close all of the workbooks that you’re not using. You might think that that’s pretty obvious, but believe me, over the years, I’ve seen a lot of clutter. Just keep open the workbooks that are relevant to your current task.

Don’t forget to visit excelshir.com where you can download these exercises, along with other free resources such as keyboard shortcut cheat sheets for both PC and Mac.

Thanks for watching, see you next time, and like my mom always said, “Life is like a box of chocolates when you share the Excel love.”