Macro Fails after Filter

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 5, 2025)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

1

In testing new macros that you develop, you may find that the macro fails when it is run and the information in a worksheet is filtered. This can happen because the macro may expect that all the information in the worksheet is available, or it may try to update information that is not visible on the screen.

The best solution to this problem is to make sure that the macro turns off filtering. This can be easily done by adding the following line of code near the beginning of the macro:

ActiveWorksheet.AutoFilterMode = False

This ensures that filtering is off and removes the problems that filtered data may present for your macro. (It will, of course, result in the loss of any filtering settings, but for the purposes of many macros that may be an acceptable side effect.)

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (11083) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Adjusting Chart Size

If you don't have Excel installed on your system, Microsoft Graph is a handy way to create simple charts for your ...

Discover More

Moving Between and Selecting Sheets with the Keyboard

Hate to take your fingers off the keyboard? Here's how you can move from worksheet to worksheet without touching the mouse.

Discover More

Changing Formatting for a Portion of Found Text

The Find and Replace capabilities of Word are quite powerful. If you want to change the formatting of just a part of text ...

Discover More

Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Determining the Hour of the Day

Need to know the current hour of the day? You can derive the information in your macros by using the Hour function, as ...

Discover More

E-mailing PDF Reports Results in Consistent Crash

It is possible to create macros that send out reports, via e-mail, from within Excel. Frank did this and ran into ...

Discover More

Finding Columns of a Certain Width

If you need to find out how many columns are set to be a specific width, you'll need a macro to help determine the info. ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is five minus 3?

2025-03-06 12:31:58

Richard R. M. W. Poynter

Should this not be "ActiveSheet.AutoFilterMode = False"? That worked for me whereas "ActiveWorksheet.AutoFilterMode = False" generated a Variable Not Defined error.

This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.

Links and Sharing
OUR COMPANY
OUR PRODUCTS
OUR SITES
 

Copyright © 2026 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.