Change the Default Number of Worksheets Created in a New Excel Workbook

Excel workbooks always have 3 worksheets to start with and here is how you change that.

Here is the default new workbook with its three worksheets:

Change Default Number of Sheets in Excel Workbook

1. Go to the File menu for Excel 2010 or later, the Office button for Excel 2007, and then click Options.
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2. Navigate to the General menu, it should be selected by default, and then look to the When creating new workbookssection.
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3. Change the number located after the option Include this many sheets.
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4. Hit the OK button and that's it.  Now let's hit Ctrl + Nto create a new workbook and see what happens:
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You can see that the new workbook now has 5 sheets in it.

Now, every time we create a new file in Excel, it will start with 5 worksheets.  You can change this to any number from 1 to 255.

I usually have this number set to 1 to save me the time of deleting extra sheets when I am creating lots of new workbooks.  There is an accompanying workbook for this tutorial, but it's empty and just provided so you will have a simple reference file if you need it.