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Three methods quickly hide/mask cell contents with
asterisk or other string in Excel
Sometimes, you may want to hide some cell contents while you sharing the workbook to
other users as below screenshot shown. Here, this article will introduce three methods on
masking cells with asterisk for hiding the contents in Excel.
 Hide and mask cell contents with asterisk with Format Cells
Hide and mask cell contents with asterisk with VBA code
Encrypt and mask cell contents with asterisk or other string
Other relatived articles (operations) about worksheet

Hide and mask cell contents with asterisk with Format Cells

In Excel, to mask cell contents with asterisk, you can use the Format Cells function.

1. Select the cells you want to hide with asterisk, then right click to select Format Cells
from the context menu.
2. In the Format Cells dialog, under Number tab, select Custom from Category list, and
then type ;;;** into the textbox under Type.

3. Click OK, now the select cell contents have been masked with asterisks.

But the cell contents also can be viewed in the formula bar.
4. Place cursor at the cell you do not want to hide contents, then click Review > Protect
Sheet, and uncheck Select unlock cells and Format cells option (other options you can
check as you need), then type and con몭rm the password for protecting the sheet in the
popping dialogs.

Then the cell contents have been hidden and masked with asterisks.

Note: If the cell contents are numeric string, this way only with display the cell contents as
blank.
Hide rows with #N/A or other specific error values by VBA code

If you want to mask both numbers and texts, you can apply VBA code.

1. Select the cells you want to encrypt, and press Alt + F11 keys to enable Microsoft
Visual Basic for Applications window.

2. Click Insert > Module, then copy and paste below code to the new Module.

VBA: Hide #N/A error rows

1 Sub E_Cells() 
2 'UpdatebyExtendoffice 
3 Dim xRg As Range 
4 Dim xERg As Range 
5 Dim xWs As Worksheet 
6 Dim xStrRg As String 
7 Dim xStrPw As String 
8 xStrPw = "" 
9 xStrPw = Application.InputBox("Enter Password", "", "", Type:=2) 
10 If xStrPw = "" Then Exit Sub 
11 On Error Resume Next 
12 Set xERg = Selection 
13 Set xWs = Application.ActiveSheet 
14 Set xRg = xWs.Cells 
15 xRg.Locked = False 
16 xERg.Locked = True 
17 xERg.NumberFormatLocal = "**;**;**;**" 
18 xWs.Protect Password:=xStrPw, DrawingObjects:=True, Contents:=True, Scenari
19 End Sub  

3. Press F5 key to run the code. And then type password in the popping out dialog, and
click the OK button. See screenshot:
Tip:

1. For decrypting the cells, you can use below macro code.

1 Sub D_Cells() 
2 'UpdatebyExtendoffice 
3 Dim xRg As Range 
4 Dim xERg As Range 
5 Dim xWs As Worksheet 
6 Dim xStrRg As String 
7 Dim xStrPw As String 
8 xStrPw = "" 
9 xStrPw = Application.InputBox("Type Password", "", "", Type:=2)
10 If xStrPw = "" Then Exit Sub 
11 On Error Resume Next 
12 Set xWs = Application.ActiveSheet 
13 Set xRg = xWs.UsedRange 
14 xERg.NumberFormatLocal = "**;**;**;**" 
15 xWs.Unprotect Password:=xStrPw 
16 For Each xERg In xRg 
17     If xERg.Locked Then xERg.NumberFormatLocal = "@" 
18 Next 
19 End Sub 

2. With the VBA code, the cell contents also can be viewed in formula bar.

Encrypt and mask cell contents with asterisk or other string

If you want to encrypt and mask cell contents with the special string as you need, the
Encrypt Cells feature of Kutools for Excel can do a nice favor.

The Encrypt Cells tool

in Kutools for Excel
can:
 1. Encrypt cells with blank
2. Encrypt cells with characters
3. Encrypt cells with a speci몭ed
string.

Kutools for Excel contains

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advanced tools for solving your 90%
Excel puzzles, and provides you a
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-day free trial.

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After free installing Kutools for Excel (60-day free trial), please do as below steps.

1. Select the cells you want to mask, then click Kutools Plus > Encrypt Cells.

2. Then in the popping dialog, type and con몭rm the password, then in Mask section, check
the option as you need.
3. Then click Ok. At present, all selected cells have been masked.

Check None, the cells display a string of gibberish.

Check Char option, you can type any character into the textbox, then the cells will display
the character only.

Check String option, then type the string you want the cells display.
Tip: if you want to decrypt the cells or display the cell contents, you can click Kutools Plus
> Decrypt Cells, then type the password to successfully decrypt.

Other Operations (Articles) Related To Hidding

Hide rows based on value

This tutorial provides some methods on hiding rows based on the value (equal to/greater
than/less than) in another column in Excel.
 Hide part of text string
Sometimes, you want to hide part of string to protect the private information, such as
phone number 123-xxx-xxxx, how can you do? In this article, you will 몭nd the easy
solutions.

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Reuse: Quickly insert complex formulas, charts and anything that you have used
before; Encrypt Cells with password; Create Mailing List and send emails...
Super Formula Bar (easily edit multiple lines of text and formula); Reading Layout (easily
read and edit large numbers of cells); Paste to Filtered Range...
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Rows/Columns... Prevent Duplicate Cells; Compare Ranges...
Select Duplicate or Unique Rows; Select Blank Rows (all cells are empty); Super Find
and Fuzzy Find in Many Workbooks; Random Select...
Exact Copy Multiple Cells without changing formula reference; Auto Create References
to Multiple Sheets; Insert Bullets, Check Boxes and more...
Extract Text, Add Text, Remove by Position, Remove Space; Create and Print Paging
Subtotals; Convert Between Cells Content and Comments...
Super Filter (save and apply filter schemes to other sheets); Advanced Sort by
month/week/day, frequency and more; Special Filter by bold, italic...
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Oldest First 

Comments (5)
No ratings yet. Be the first to rate!

Syakir135 about 1 year ago · #34610

How do Mask baseon cell value 몭Sub tra5몭몭Dim selrange As Range
Dim dgstring1, dgstring2, dgstring3, dgstring4 As String
dgstring1 몭 Sheet1.Range("F26")
dgstring2 몭 Sheet1.Range("F26")
dgstring3 몭 Sheet1.Range("F26")
dgstring4 몭 Sheet1.Range("F26")
dgstring = "dgstring1;dgstring2;dgstring3;dgstring4"
selrange.NumberFormatLocal = dgstring
End Sub

Please help.
Reply · Report ·  0 ·  0

Totalys about 1 year ago · #36817

If you want to hide only some parts of the string, here is another way:

몭LEFT몭A1,3몭&REPT몭"*",LEN몭A1몭몭6몭&RIGHT몭A1,3몭
Explanation:
1. LEFT 몭 Will add some letters from the left of the phrase.2. REPT 몭 Will
repeat *, n times. where n can be LEN몭A1몭 or LEN몭A1몭몭X where X is the
number fo letters that you want to keep showing3. RIGHT 몭 Will add some
 number fo letters that you want to keep showing3. RIGHT 몭 Will add some
letters from the end of the phrase.
If A1 content is foo.bar@gmail.comThis formula will result in:
foo***********com
Reply ·  0 ·  0

totalys about 1 year ago · #36818

I suggest this:
A1 content               몭 Expected Resultfoo.bar@gmail.com
- foo***********com

Formula:=LEFT몭A1,3몭&REPT몭"*",LEN몭A1몭몭6몭&RIGHT몭A1,3몭
Remove left or/and right and change the length to control what to replace
with * and what to keep at the beginning or at the end.
Reply · Report ·  0 ·  0

Mike about 11 months ago · #37067

Is it possible to create a mask email without the email account's password?
Reply ·  0 ·  0

Julian TEK Solutions Medellin Col. about 1 month ago · #41218

Hola, yo lo solucione asi:
1. Formula: 몭SI몭J7몭1;lo que quieren mostrar;"******") y luego,
2. Macro: una macro que descargue el 1 en la celda J7.
3. Boton: un botón que ejecute la macro, puede llamarse mostrar cifrado o
algo asi.

De esta manera, se logra solucionar las mascaras u ocultamiento de celdas.

Reply ·  0 ·  0

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