How to combine multiple Excel files into one workbook

Method 1: Move or Copy sheets in Excel

1. 1Open the workbook you're copying from and the workbook you're copying into.
2. 2Right-click the sheet tab you want to bring over and choose Move or Copy.
3. 3Under To book, choose the destination workbook, pick where the sheet should go and tick Create a copy.
4. 4Click OK, repeat for each sheet, then save the destination workbook.

This is fine for a few sheets, but every workbook has to be opened and copied separately, which gets slow with many files.

Method 2: Power Query, when you want one combined table

If every file has the same columns and you want all the rows stacked into a single table, use Power Query:

1. 1Put all the files in one folder.
2. 2In Excel, choose Data › Get Data › From File › From Folder and select the folder.
3. 3Click Combine › Combine & Load, choose the sheet or table to use as the sample and click OK.

Power Query appends the rows into one table and can refresh when you add files. It's powerful, but it's built for stacking data rather than keeping each sheet separate.

Method 3: Merge many workbooks at once with Mergevanta

1. 1Open Mergevanta's Merge Excel page.
2. 2Add your .xlsx, .xlsm, .csv or .tsv files.
3. 3Turn on source tagging if you want each sheet labelled with the file it came from.
4. 4Press Merge and download one workbook containing every sheet.

Sheets keep their values, formulas and formatting. When two files have a sheet with the same name, the later one gets a numeric suffix instead of overwriting the first.

Which method should you use?