How to Create a Dropdown List in Excel

A dropdown list helps a team use consistent values in a worksheet. This example creates a status field with three choices: Not started, In progress, and Complete.

Prepare your list

In Excel for Windows, enter the three statuses in cells A2:A4 on a source worksheet. Keep the entries together without blank cells. Give the column a heading in A1, but exclude it from the dropdown source.

Create the dropdown

1. Select the destination cells where people will enter a status.
2. Open Data > Data Validation.
3. On Settings, set Allow to List.
4. Click Source and select the source cells A2:A4.
5. Enable In-cell dropdown. Select Ignore blank if empty entries are acceptable.
6. On Input Message, add a short instruction such as “Choose the current task status.”
7. On Error Alert, enable the alert and choose Stop to reject manually typed values outside the list. Select OK.

Test before sharing

Choose each status from the dropdown. Then type an unlisted value to confirm the Stop alert appears. Check that the column is wide enough to display each choice.

If Data Validation is unavailable, check whether the sheet is protected or the workbook uses sharing settings that restrict validation changes.

Sources

• Microsoft Support: Create a drop-down list
• Microsoft Support: Apply data validation to cells