By default, whenever you launch Microsoft Excel and create a new, blank workbook, it automatically generates a single worksheet (labelled “Sheet1” at the bottom). In older versions of Excel, it famously used to generate three blank sheets by default. If your typical daily workflow involves building complex financial models that require four, five, or even ten separate tabs to organise your data, clicking the small “+” button to add new sheets every single time you start a project is tedious. Fortunately, you can tell Excel exactly how many sheets it should generate automatically for every new file.
How to Change the Default Number of Sheets
You can adjust this behaviour deep within Excel’s global Options menu. The change will apply to all future blank workbooks you create on this specific computer.
- Open Microsoft Excel.
- Click on the File tab located in the top-left corner of the window.
- Look at the bottom of the left-hand blue sidebar and click on Options. (If your window is small, you may need to click ‘More…’ first to reveal Options).
- The “Excel Options” dialogue box will appear. Ensure you are on the General tab in the left-hand menu pane.
- Look in the main window for the section titled “When creating new workbooks”.
- Locate the setting labelled Include this many sheets:.
- Change the number to your desired default. You can use the small up/down arrows or simply highlight the number and type a new one (e.g., 5).
- Click the OK button at the bottom right of the window.
Testing the Change
To verify the setting has been applied, press Ctrl + N on your keyboard to instantly spawn a brand new workbook.
Look at the bottom left corner of the screen. Instead of just “Sheet1,” you will now see “Sheet1,” “Sheet2,” “Sheet3,” etc., up to the exact number you specified in the settings. This simple tweak can save hundreds of unnecessary clicks over a year of heavy spreadsheet work.