Insert Row Shortcut in Excel

To insert a row or rows in Excel using a keyboard shortcut, you have to select at least one cell, otherwise, the shortcut won’t work because Excel doesn’t know where to insert a new row.

Now, you can use the following keyboard shortcut.

Ctrl + Shift + +

Now, you have to move your down arrow twice, or just click Entire row.

Because we selected cells in two rows, two new rows are inserted.

This method is fine, but there are too many steps in the process.

Insert a row using a macro

Let’s create a macro that will add rows with just a keyboard shortcut.

First, click a cell inside a worksheet. Then click a shortcut in the bottom-left corner to start recording a macro.

Add a name and choose a keyboard shortcut. You can’t use the same shortcut as before because the shortcut should look like this:

Ctrl + [letter]

Ctrl + Shift + [letter]

I’m going to use Ctrl + Shift + I to run this macro. To do it, move the cursor to the small textbox, under the Shortcut key and press Shift + i.

Click OK.

Now, use the Ctrl + Shift + + shortcut one last time and from the insert, window choose “Entire row“. Click OK.

Stop recording the macro immediately after that by clicking the stop button in the bottom-left corner.

To update or change the code in your macro, you can navigate to View >> Macros >> Macros.

Select the macro. You can click Options to change a shortcut, or Edit to view the code inside this macro.

If you followed the steps to the letter, your code should look like this.

Most of this is a comment about the keyboard shortcut and macro name. You can delete them. Below the comment is the most important part – the actual code.

That’s it, now you can insert row(s) with the following shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + I.

Tomasz Decker is an Excel specialist, skilled in data analysis and financial modeling.