Fill Down Shortcut

Use the Excel Fill Down Shortcut or the AutoFill function to copy data to multiple cells through useful examples.

This guide will show you how to enable the Fill Down feature using a keyboard shortcut or mouse in Excel from Excel 2010 to Microsoft365 and Mac Excel.

How to use the Fill Down Shortcut

Steps to use the Fill Down in Excel using a shortcut:

  1. Type a text or a number into cell C3
  2. Press and hold the Shift key
  3. Hold Shift, then press the down arrow key five times to increase the selection until cell C8
  4. Release the keys
  5. Use the Ctrl + D shortcut

Check this sort animation below:

Excel fill down shortcut

The Fill Down shortcut in Excel is Ctrl + D, and the shortcut works on Mac also.

Fill Down using mouse

Let us see another way if you don’t know how the fill down shortcut works use the mouse method to duplicate cells.

  1. Select the cell that contains data
  2. Use your mouse to highlight the cells of the range where you want to copy the source cell
  3. Press the Ctrl + D shortcut
Fill Down using mouse
The result is the same as the previous example.

How to use the AutoFill feature to quickly Duplicate the Data

In the example, you want to duplicate the data that is in cell C3. To copy this value until cell C8 do the following:

  1. Select cell C3
  2. Check that the cursor is changed to a small cross figure
  3. Press the left mouse key and drag the fill handle downward until cell C8
  4. Release the mouse

Now Excel copied cell C3, and the highlighted ranges contain the source cell data, in this case, 1500.

We hope that you find today’s guide helpful. From now on, you can fill and copy the data easily using various ways. Keep on reading!

Additional resources

Istvan Vozar

Istvan is the co-founder of Visual Analytics. He helps people reach the top in Excel.