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Sort, Filter & Search

Three ways to make sense of a big file: sort it into order, filter it down to the rows you care about, and search for specific text.

Sorting

You can sort by any column, ascending or descending.

From the column menu (fastest):

  1. Long-press a column header.
  2. Tap Sort Ascending or Sort Descending.

From the filter panel:

  1. Turn on Filter in the toolbar (see below), tap a column's filter button, and use the Ascending / Descending buttons at the top of the panel.

The sort wording adapts to the column type — a Number column offers Smallest / Largest first, a Text column offers A→Z / Z→A, and so on. If you've turned on First Row Is Header, the header row stays pinned at the top and is never sorted into the data.

Filtering

Filtering hides the rows that don't match the values you pick, without changing the file.

Turn filtering on:

  • Tap the Filter button in the toolbar. A filter button appears on each column header.

Filter a column:

  1. Tap the filter button on a column header. A panel opens.
  2. The panel lists the column's distinct values, each with a checkbox.
  3. Tick the values you want to keep (untick the ones to hide).
  4. Tap Apply.

Only rows matching your ticked values remain visible. You can filter several columns at once — the results narrow with each one.

Other panel actions:

  • Clear Filter — removes this column's filter.
  • Ascending / Descending — sort by this column.
  • Cancel — close without changing anything.

Turn filtering off: tap the Filter button again. The icon is filled while filtering is active.

Very large columns

The filter panel lists up to the first 10,000 unique values in a column. If a column has more distinct values than that, a note tells you the list was truncated — narrow things down with search or another filter.

Filters and other features work together

Sorting, filtering, copying, clearing, charts, and Go to Row all respect the current filter — they act on the rows you can actually see.

Searching

To find text anywhere in the sheet:

  1. Tap Find in the toolbar (on iPhone it's in the overflow ••• menu).
  2. Type in the search field. Matching cells are highlighted as you type.
  3. The bar shows a match count.
  4. Use the ‹ (Previous) and › (Next) arrows — or press return — to jump between matches. The editor scrolls to and selects each one.
  5. Tap Done to close the find bar.

Note

Search finds up to 1,000 matches. If a search would match more than that, the count shows it was capped — refine your search text to narrow it.