How to create colour changing checkboxes on Google Sheets

It’s often useful to have checkboxes in place to record whether certain tasks are complete, it’s even more useful to have them change colour once a task is complete.

Here is a very quick guide to accomplish this.

You can download our working example sheet here

Phase one: Insert your checkboxes

Step 1: Highlight the cells where you would like to input your checkboxes

Step 2: Click on the “Insert” tab in the options bar

Step 3: Click on “Checkbox

Step 4: Celebrate your new checkboxes!

Phase two: Colour change your checkboxes

Step 1: Highlight the cells where you have placed your checkboxes

Step 2: Click on the “format” tab in the options bar

Step 3: Click on “Conditional Formatting”

Step 4: Change the “format cells if” section to the option “Custom formula is” – you will notice a new textbox appears below.

Step 5: In this textbox, insert the following “=CELLRANGE=TRUE” where “CELLRANGE” is the range of cells that the checkboxes are in (e.g. C4:C7)

Step 6: Select the formatting you would like to apply to the cells when the checkboxes are ticked – in the case of our example, we would just like the checkbox to turn green when they are ticked

Step 7: Click “Done” when you are happy with your formatting

Step 8: If you would like to add a colour to the checkbox when they are unticked click on “Add another rule”

Step 9: Repeat Step 4

Step 10: In the textbox, insert the following “=CELLRANGE=FALSE” where “CELLRANGE” is the range of cells that the checkboxes are in (e.g. C4:C7)

Step 8: If you would like to add a colour to the checkbox when the are unticked click on “Add another rule”

Step 9: Repeat Step 4

Step 10: In the textbox, insert the following “=CELLRANGE=FALSE” where “CELLRANGE” is the range of cells that the checkboxes are in (e.g. C4:C7)

Step 11: Select the formatting you would like to apply to the cells when the checkboxes are unticked – in the case of our example, we would just like the checkbox to be red when they are not ticked

Step 12: Click “Done” when you are happy with your formatting

Step 13: Play with your new creation for several hours!

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