How to Copy and Paste in Google Sheets: Values, Formats and Shortcuts

You paste a column of totals into a new tab and every cell turns into #REF!. Or the numbers land fine, but they bring a bright fill color and three different fonts along with them. Learning how to copy and paste in Google Sheets properly is mostly about one decision: do you want the values, the formulas, the formatting, or all of it?

This guide walks through the shortcuts, Paste special, the browser quirks that trip people up, and how to stop copying the same cells over and over.

The Basic Shortcuts

Google Sheets runs in the browser, but it uses the same shortcuts you already know — plus a couple of its own:

Action	Mac	Windows / ChromeOS
Copy	⌘C	Ctrl+C
Cut	⌘X	Ctrl+X
Paste	⌘V	Ctrl+V
Paste values only	⌘⇧V	Ctrl+Shift+V
Paste format only	⌘⌥V	Ctrl+Alt+V
Undo	⌘Z	Ctrl+Z

When you copy a range, Sheets draws a dashed border around it. You can paste that range as many times as you like; press Esc to clear the border when you're done.

Cut moves, copy duplicates. Cutting cells and pasting them elsewhere moves the data, and formulas that referenced those cells follow it to the new location. Copying leaves the original untouched.

Paste Values Only

Most paste headaches in Sheets come from pasting formulas where you wanted their results. A cell containing =B2*C2 pasted into a sheet without matching data produces zeros or errors.

To paste only the numbers or text:

• Press ⌘⇧V on Mac or Ctrl+Shift+V on Windows.
• Or right-click the destination and choose Paste special → Values only.
• Or use the menu: Edit → Paste special → Values only.

Values-only pasting also drops the source formatting, which makes it the cleanest way to bring in data from another spreadsheet, a web page or an email. The same shortcut strips formatting in many other apps too — see how to always paste as plain text for the full list.

Every Paste Special Option

Edit → Paste special offers more than values. The options worth knowing:

• Values only — results, no formulas, no formatting.
• Format only — fonts, colors, borders and number formats, without the data. The Paint format roller in the toolbar does the same for quick one-offs.
• Formula only — the formulas without the source styling.
• Conditional formatting only and Data validation only — copy rules (like dropdowns) to a new range without touching its contents.
• Transposed — flips rows into columns and columns into rows. If you want the flipped copy to stay linked to the source, use =TRANSPOSE(A1:D10) instead.
• Column width only — so a copied table doesn't arrive squashed.
• All except borders — everything but the grid lines.

Copying Formulas Without Breaking Them

Copied formulas use relative references: =A1+B1 pasted one row down becomes =A2+B2. That's usually what you want, until you need one cell to stay fixed.

• Lock references with $. $A$1 fixes both the column and the row; $A1 fixes only the column; A$1 fixes only the row. Press F4 while editing a reference to cycle through them (on many Mac keyboards that's Fn+F4).
• Fill instead of paste. Drag the small blue square at the bottom-right of a selected cell to extend a formula down or across.
• Fill down or right. Select the source cell plus the empty cells below it and press ⌘D / Ctrl+D, or the cells to its right and press ⌘R / Ctrl+R.
• Copy the exact formula text. Click into the formula bar, select the formula and copy it there. Pasting that text keeps every reference exactly as written.

Why Right-Click Paste Sometimes Doesn't Work

Because Sheets lives in a browser, the browser decides whether a web page may read your clipboard. That's why you might see a message telling you to use keyboard shortcuts instead of the right-click menu.

• In Chrome, the first time you paste from the right-click menu, Chrome may ask whether docs.google.com can see text and images copied to the clipboard. Allow it, and right-click paste works from then on.
• In other browsers, the right-click menu may stay restricted. The keyboard shortcuts (⌘V / Ctrl+V and ⌘⇧V / Ctrl+Shift+V) always work.

If pasting fails everywhere, not just in Sheets, our guide to copy and paste not working on Mac walks through the system-level fixes.

Pasting Data From Excel, the Web or a PDF

Data from outside Sheets doesn't always land where you expect:

• Everything ends up in one column? After pasting, Sheets often shows a small Split text to columns prompt. Click it, or use Data → Split text to columns and pick the separator (comma, semicolon, space, or a custom one).
• Web tables bring links and fonts with them? Paste with ⌘⇧V / Ctrl+Shift+V for values only.
• Coming from Excel? Ordinary copy and paste between Excel and Sheets keeps values and most formatting. Formulas that use Excel-only functions may need adjusting — our guide on how to copy and paste in Excel covers the Excel side.

Copying Between Spreadsheets

A few ways to move data between separate files:

• Copy a whole tab. Right-click the sheet tab at the bottom and choose Copy to → Existing spreadsheet (or New spreadsheet).
• Keep a live link. Use =IMPORTRANGE("spreadsheet_url", "Sheet1!A1:D50") to pull a range from another file. The first time, Sheets asks you to allow access between the two spreadsheets.
• Paste into Google Docs or Slides. When you paste a Sheets range there, you're offered the choice to link it to the spreadsheet or paste it unlinked.

The Real Bottleneck: One Item at a Time

Building a report rarely means copying one thing. You grab a figure from one spreadsheet, a client name from an email, a link from another tab, a note from Slack. The system clipboard holds just one item, so each new copy erases the last — and you end up flipping between windows to copy the same things again.

There are a few built-in helpers:

• Windows 11 keeps a clipboard history you can open with Win+V.
• macOS 26 Tahoe added a basic clipboard history in Spotlight (⌘Space, then ⌘4), though items expire after about eight hours and can't be pinned or organized.
• ChromeOS has a clipboard history on Launcher+V.

Where Copaste Fits In

If spreadsheets are a daily part of your work, a clipboard manager removes most of that back-and-forth. Copaste runs on Mac and Windows, with a Chrome extension that brings what you copy in the browser — including in Google Sheets — into the same history:

• Unlimited history. Copy every value you need first, then paste them into your sheet in one pass.
• Search to find a number, name or formula you copied hours ago.
• Pins for things you paste constantly: cost-center codes, IMPORTRANGE URLs, standard formulas.
• Plain-text pasting so web data arrives without its styling.
• Local-first privacy. Your history stays on your device.

Quick Reference

• Copy / Cut / Paste: ⌘C / ⌘X / ⌘V (Ctrl on Windows)
• Paste values only: ⌘⇧V / Ctrl+Shift+V
• Paste format only: ⌘⌥V / Ctrl+Alt+V
• Lock a reference: F4 (Fn+F4 on many Macs)
• Fill down / right: ⌘D, ⌘R / Ctrl+D, Ctrl+R
• Transpose: Edit → Paste special → Transposed

Get these into muscle memory and copy and paste in Google Sheets stops producing broken formulas and mismatched fonts. Add a clipboard history on top, and you'll stop re-copying cells you already had.