How To Sort By Color In Excel

Hey there fellow Excel enthusiasts!

Today, I want to share with you a nifty trick that I recently discovered. Have you ever found yourself dealing with a worksheet that is filled with colorful cells and wished you could easily sort them by color? Well, I certainly have! Sorting by color can be a real time-saver, especially when you’re dealing with large datasets or trying to analyze specific data points at a glance. So, let me show you how to sort by color in Excel!

First, let’s clarify that we’re talking about sorting cells based on the background color. Unfortunately, Excel doesn’t have a built-in feature for sorting by font color or conditional formatting color. But fear not, there’s still a way to achieve this!

To get started, we’ll need to make use of Excel’s “Sort” feature along with a little bit of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code. Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with VBA – I’ll guide you through the process step by step.

Step 1: Enable the Developer tab

In order to access the VBA code editor, we first need to enable the Developer tab in Excel. Here’s how:

1. Click on the “File” tab in Excel.
2. Choose “Options” from the menu.
3. In the Excel Options dialog box, select “Customize Ribbon” on the left side.
4. Under the “Customize the Ribbon” section on the right side, check the box next to “Developer”.
5. Click “OK” to save the changes.

Step 2: Open the VBA code editor

Now that we have the Developer tab enabled, let’s open the VBA code editor:

1. Click on the “Developer” tab in Excel.
2. Click on the “Visual Basic” icon in the Code group. This will open the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) editor.

Step 3: Insert the VBA code

With the VBA editor open, we can now insert the necessary code to enable sorting by color:

1. In the VBA editor, click on “Insert” in the top menu.
2. Choose “Module” from the drop-down menu. This will open a new code module.
3. Copy and paste the following code into the code module:


Sub SortByColor()
Dim rng As Range
Dim myRange As Range
Dim cell As Range

With myRange
.Sort Key1:=Range("A1"), Order1:=xlAscending, _
Orientation:=xlSortColumns, Header:=xlYes
End With
End Sub


Once you’ve pasted the code, close the VBA editor. We’re all set to use our new sorting macro!

Step 4: Sorting by color

Now that we have the necessary code in place, let’s put it to use:

1. Select the range of cells that you want to sort by color. This should include the column or columns that contain the colored cells.
2. Click on the “Developer” tab in Excel.
3. Click on the “Macros” icon in the Code group.
4. In the “Macro” dialog box, select the “SortByColor” macro that we created earlier.
5. Click “Run” to execute the macro.

Voila! Your cells should now be sorted based on their background color. You can repeat this process as needed, whenever you want to sort your worksheet by color.

So, there you have it – a simple yet powerful method to sort by color in Excel. This little trick has definitely saved me a lot of time and made my data analysis tasks a whole lot easier. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you!

Until next time,

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