How to Paste Values Only in Google Sheets

You copied a range and a normal paste brought over formulas, colors, and borders you did not want. Paste values only drops all of that and keeps the numbers and text.

Copy the source range

Select the cells and press Ctrl + C (Mac Cmd + C). The source can be another sheet, another spreadsheet, or a table on a web page.

Paste with the values-only shortcut

Click the top-left cell of the destination and press Ctrl + Shift + V (Mac Cmd + Shift + V). Only the displayed values land in the cells. Formulas arrive as their results, and fills, fonts, and borders are not carried over.

Use the right-click menu instead

Right-click the destination cell and choose Paste special, Values only. The same item is under Edit, Paste special in the menu bar. Use this route when the shortcut is claimed by another app or a browser extension.

Fix a paste you already made

If a normal paste brought the formatting with it, look for the small clipboard icon at the bottom-right corner of the pasted range. Click it and choose Paste values only. The icon disappears after the next edit, so use it before doing anything else.

Paste the formatting without the values

For the reverse case, copy the styled cells and choose Paste special, Format only. Text and numbers in the destination stay as they are and pick up the fill, font, borders, and number format of the source.

To freeze formulas in place. Copy a range of formulas and paste values over the same range. The cells now hold static results and stop recalculating, which is the standard way to lock in a lookup, a timestamp, or a random number.

When copying from a web page. Ctrl + Shift + V also strips web formatting such as links, fonts, and background colors, so the data arrives as plain cells and the row heights stay normal.