Safe spreadsheet cleaning — what we will and won't change

Safe fixes we will apply

After you review the analysis, a cleaned download can apply only these structural changes:

• Remove exact duplicate rows (first copy kept)
• Remove completely empty rows
• Remove completely empty columns
• Trim edge spaces on ordinary words; protect possible IDs, dates, money and emails

What risky auto-tools often change

A generic “Excel cleaner” may fill blanks, normalise dates, drop rows that match on a single key, or evaluate formulas down to cached values. Those can be the right move in a notebook you control. They are the wrong default for a file you have not inspected.

We do not fill missing values. We do not recast types. We do not pick a customer-ID column and collapse the sheet. If two rows are not identical, they both stay.

Formulas stop the auto-clean

If any worksheet contains formulas, automatic cleaning is disabled. Removing a blank row, trimming a cell, or rewriting the sheet as values can break references or freeze a calculation.

You still get an analysis so you can see empty rows, duplicates, and whitespace. You do not get a one-click cleaned file that pretends formulas were never there. Copy the sheet and paste values yourself if you want structural cleanup on a values-only version.

Honest limits, not slogans

This is a small, specific cleaner. The file is uploaded so we can analyse it. It is deleted within 24 hours and never published. There is no account.

If that trade-off is wrong for a particular workbook, keep the workbook local and use Excel’s own tools on a copy. If you want a second pair of rules that only touch clutter, start with a free analysis.