Go To Special in Google Sheets: select cells by type in one click

Sometimes you need every blank cell in a sheet. Or every formula. Or every cell carrying a bit of conditional formatting left over from whoever built the thing before you. Google Sheets gives you no button for that — there is no "select all cells of this type" anywhere in the menus.

You can fake it with a helper column and a filter, one case at a time. Or you can add the missing piece: Select Special drops a select-by-type panel into the Extensions menu — blanks, formulas, notes, colors, and a dozen more, in one click. (Excel users know this as Go To Special; Sheets just never shipped it.)

Does Google Sheets have a Go To Special command?

No. Ctrl+F finds text, and that is as far as native selection goes. Nothing in Sheets lets you grab cells by what they are — blank, formula, formatted, validated, commented. There is no menu item, no shortcut, and no function that hands you "all the blank cells" as a selection you can act on.

That single gap is why people keep searching for "go to special google sheets" after switching from a desktop spreadsheet. The feature they relied on simply is not here.

Selecting blank cells by hand

For a one-off job, the helper-column trick works. It is just fiddly.

1. Add a helper column next to your data.
2. Enter =ISBLANK(A2) and fill it down the full range.
3. Put a filter on the helper column.
4. Show only the TRUE rows.
5. Select the cells you actually care about in your data column.
6. Do your edit — then go back and delete the helper column.

Swap ISBLANK for ISFORMULA and the same dance finds formula cells. For most other cases there is no function to lean on at all: conditional formatting, data validation, and notes are invisible to formulas. The trick also falls apart the moment your data is not one clean rectangle, or you need the selection spread across several columns.

So it is fine once. By the third time, it gets old.

Helper column vs Apps Script vs Select Special

Adding Go To Special to Google Sheets

1. Install Select Special from the Google Workspace Marketplace.
2. In your sheet, open Extensions → Select Special.
3. Pick what you are after — blanks, formulas, conditional formatting, data validation, notes, fill color, precedents, and more.
4. Hit Select.

What you get back behaves exactly like a normal selection: type to overwrite it, delete it, recolor it, copy it — all in one move, across every matched cell. The installation guide covers the first run in detail.

What you can select

A few of the types worth knowing:

• Blank cells across a range
• Only the visible cells left after a filter
• Cells carrying conditional formatting, data validation, or notes
• A formula's precedents and dependents

Where this actually saves time

Filling gaps in a dataset is the obvious one: select the blanks, type a value, press Ctrl+Enter, and every empty cell fills at once. Cleaning up an imported report is another — grab every cell with stray conditional formatting or a leftover note and wipe it in a single pass.

It also makes inherited sheets less scary. Select every formula cell to review or lock it without touching the hard-typed inputs. And after a filter, grab only the visible cells so a paste or delete never spills into the rows you hid.

FAQ

Does Google Sheets have Go To Special like Excel? No. There is no built-in Go To Special dialog. You can reproduce parts of it with formulas and filters, write an Apps Script, or add the whole feature with the Select Special add-on.

How do I select all blank cells in Google Sheets? There is no native command. Use a helper column with ISBLANK plus a filter, or select every blank in one click with Select Special.

Is there a keyboard shortcut for Go To Special in Google Sheets? No. F5 and Ctrl+G open a Go To dialog in some desktop spreadsheets, but Sheets has no equivalent. Select Special adds the capability through the Extensions menu.

Is Select Special free? Yes — there is a free plan. Pro is $5/month or $30/year. See the pricing page for current limits.