How to Move a Chart in Google Sheets

You’ve just wrangled your raw data and created the perfect chart in Google Sheets, revealing a clear trend your team needs to see. But there’s one problem: it’s floating awkwardly over your columns and rows, making both the data and the chart hard to read. Learning how to properly move and organize your charts transforms your spreadsheet from a simple data dump into a professional-looking, easy-to-understand report. This guide will show you several ways to move your charts in Google Sheets, from quick repositioning to creating a dedicated dashboard sheet.

Why Bother Moving Your Charts?

Before jumping into the "how," it's helpful to understand the "why." A well-placed chart isn't just about aesthetics, it’s about clarity and communication. When you isolate a chart from the noise of the raw data, you make the insight instantly digestible.

Moving charts helps you:

Improve Readability: Placing charts next to each other or on a separate sheet prevents them from obscuring the underlying data.
Create Dashboards: Arranging multiple charts on a single, dedicated sheet allows you to build a visual dashboard that gives a high-level overview of your performance.
Tell a Story: Organize charts in a logical sequence to guide your audience through your findings step-by-step.
Prepare for Presentations: Moving a chart to its own sheet makes it easier to copy into Google Slides or Docs for a formal report.

Method 1: The Quick Drag and Drop

The most straightforward way to move a chart is by simply dragging and dropping it. This is perfect for minor adjustments or rearranging charts that are already on the right sheet.

Here’s how to do it:

Click once anywhere on your chart. You'll know it's selected when you see a blue border appear around it with handles on the corners and sides.
Once selected, just click and hold your mouse button anywhere on the chart (except for the three-dot menu or the resize handles).
Drag the chart to its new location on the same sheet. As you move it, you’ll see a faint outline of the chart follow your cursor.
Release the mouse button when you're happy with the position.

This method works great for putting a chart alongside a summary table or arranging a few smaller charts in a row. It’s fast, intuitive, and something you'll use constantly.

Pro Tip: Resizing Your Chart

After you drag a chart, you might notice its size isn't quite right for its new home. To resize it, just click on the chart to select it, then click and drag one of the small blue squares (handles) along the border. Drag a corner handle to resize the chart proportionally, or drag a side handle to stretch it vertically or horizontally.

Method 2: Give Your Chart its Own Space (Move to Own Sheet)

When you have a very detailed chart or want to present it without any distractions, moving it to its own dedicated sheet is the best option. This elevates the chart into a standalone element in your workbook, making it look polished and professional.

This method is ideal for primary KPIs or complex visualizations that deserve the spotlight.

Follow these steps:

Click on the chart you want to move. A blue border will appear.
In the top-right corner of the chart, click the three vertical dots (the "More" menu).
From the dropdown menu, select "Move to own sheet...".

That's it! Google Sheets will instantly create a new sheet in your workbook, dedicated entirely to this chart. The chart will be automatically centered and sized to fill the page. The new sheet will be named something like "Chart 1" by default, but you can easily rename it by double-clicking the sheet tab at the bottom of the screen.

The biggest benefit here is focus. Sending someone a link directly to this sheet presents them with a clean, full-screen visualization without any of the clutter from the raw data.

Method 3: Copying a Chart to Another Sheet

What if you want the chart on a different, pre-existing sheet - like a summary or dashboard page you’ve already created? In that case, you don’t technically "move" it, you copy and paste it.

The process is simple:

Select the chart you want to move by clicking on it.
Click the three dots in the top-right corner and choose "Copy chart." Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + C (or Cmd + C on a Mac).
Navigate to the sheet where you want to place the chart.
Click on a cell where you'd like the top-left corner of the chart to appear.
Paste the chart using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + V (or Cmd + V on a Mac).

Your chart will appear in the new location. The great part is that it remains dynamically linked to the original data source. If you update the numbers in your data table, the chart will automatically update, no matter which sheet it's on.

After pasting, you can delete the original chart from the data sheet if you'd like to 'move' it permanently.

Building a Simple Dashboard by Organizing Charts

The real power of moving charts comes when you start building a dashboard. A dashboard is simply a sheet with multiple charts and data points, giving a comprehensive view of performance at a glance. It's the reporting equivalent of a car's dashboard: all the critical info in one place.

Here are some tips for building a clean dashboard in Google Sheets:

Create a Dedicated "Dashboard" Sheet: First, create a new sheet and name it something intuitive like "Dashboard" or "Overview." This will be the home for all your key visualizations.
Use a Consistent Layout: Try to arrange your charts in a grid. This makes the information easier to follow. For example, place your highest-level KPIs (like total revenue or total users) at the top, followed by more granular charts below.
Standardize Your Chart Sizes: Uniformity looks professional. Try to make charts of similar importance the same size. For instance, make all four of your main marketing channel charts the same dimensions. You can use the gridlines in Sheets to help you align them perfectly.
Add Context with Text Boxes: Don't make people guess what they're looking at. Use text boxes (found under Insert > Text box) to add clear headlines for each chart or section of your dashboard.

Moving Charts Beyond Sheets: To Docs or Slides

Your charts often need to live outside of your spreadsheet, especially in reports or presentations. Google Workspace makes this incredibly easy.

After you’ve copied your chart in Sheets (using the steps from Method 3), open your Google Doc or Google Slides file and paste it (Ctrl + V or Cmd + V).

You'll see a small dialog box with two options:

Link to spreadsheet: This is a powerful feature. If you choose this, the chart in your doc or slides will remain connected to your Google Sheet. If you update the data in your sheet, a small "Update" button will appear on the chart in your doc or slides. Clicking it instantly refreshes the chart with the new data. This is a massive time-saver for recurring reports.
Paste unlinked: This option makes the chart a static image. It won't change even if the original data in your spreadsheet is updated. Use this if you need a snapshot of the data at a specific moment in time.

Final Thoughts

Moving a chart in Google Sheets is simple, but as you've seen, this basic skill opens the door to creating clean, professional, and highly effective reports and dashboards. Whether you're doing a quick drag-and-drop, isolating a key chart on its own sheet, or building a multi-chart dashboard, you now have the tools to present your data with clarity and impact.

Spending half your day copying, pasting, and organizing reports can take all the fun out of data. As a team that has lived in spreadsheets, we were tired of the manual busywork required just to answer simple questions about performance. So, we designed Graphed to connect to your tools and automatically create live, real-time dashboards for you. Just connect your data sources, ask for what you want to see - "Show me a dashboard of website traffic from Google Analytics by source for the last 90 days" - and our AI builds it in seconds, saving you hours of manual reporting work.