Clearing the Undo Stack in a Macro

by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 10, 2015)

Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Clearing the Undo Stack in a Macro.

In Word, you can use the UndoClear method with the ActiveDocument object in order to clear the Undo stack. If you are programming macros in Excel's flavor of VBA, you may wonder if there is a similar method for use in Excel.

Excel VBA doesn't provide a method like UndoClear. The reason is because the undo stack is automatically cleared by Excel whenever your macro makes a change (any change) to the workbook. If your macro doesn't make any changes, and you still want it to clear the undo stack, then all you need to do is make an innocuous change to the worksheet. For instance, the following macro copies the contents of cell A1 back into A1 and, in the process, clears the undo stack:

Sub ClearUndo()
    Range("A1").Copy Range("A1")
End Sub

Excel Smarts for Beginners! Featuring the friendly and trusted For Dummies style, this popular guide shows beginners how to get up and running with Excel while also helping more experienced users get comfortable with the newest features. Check out Excel 2013 For Dummies today!