How to Remove Columns in R (With Examples)

by Tutor Aspire January 17, 2023

Often you may want to remove one or more columns from a data frame in R. Fortunately this is easy to do using the select() function from the dplyr package.

library(dplyr)

This tutorial shows several examples of how to use this function in practice using the following data frame:

#create data frame
df frame(player = c('a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e'),
                 position = c('G', 'F', 'F', 'G', 'G'),
                 points = c(12, 15, 19, 22, 32),
                 rebounds = c(5, 7, 7, 12, 11))

#view data frame
df

  player position points rebounds
1      a        G     12        5
2      b        F     15        7
3      c        F     19        7
4      d        G     22       12
5      e        G     32       11

Example 1: Remove Columns by Name

The following code shows how to remove columns from a data frame by name:

#remove column named 'points'
df %>% select(-points)

  player position rebounds
1      a        G        5
2      b        F        7
3      c        F        7
4      d        G       12
5      e        G       11

Example 2: Remove Columns in List

The following code shows how to remove columns from a data frame that are in a specific list:

#remove columns named 'points' or 'rebounds'
df %>% select(-one_of('points', 'rebounds')) 

  player position
1      a        G
2      b        F
3      c        F
4      d        G
5      e        G

Example 3: Remove Columns in Range

The following code shows how to remove all columns in the range from ‘position’ to ‘rebounds’:

#remove columns in range from 'position' to 'rebounds'
df %>% select(-(position:rebounds)) 

  player
1      a
2      b
3      c
4      d
5      e

Example 4: Remove Columns that Contain a Phrase

The following code shows how to remove all columns that contain the word ‘points’

#remove columns that contain the word 'points'
df %>% select(-contains('points')) 

  player position rebounds
1      a        G        5
2      b        F        7
3      c        F        7
4      d        G       12
5      e        G       11

Example 5: Remove Columns that Start with Certain Letters

The following code shows how to remove all columns that start with the letters ‘po’:

#remove columns that start with 'po'
df %>% select(-starts_with('po')) 

  player rebounds
1      a        5
2      b        7
3      c        7
4      d       12
5      e       11

Example 6: Remove Columns that End with Certain Letters

The following code shows how to remove all columns that end with the letter ‘s’:

#remove columns that end with 's'
df %>% select(-ends_with('s')) 

  player position
1      a        G
2      b        F
3      c        F
4      d        G
5      e        G

Example 7: Remove Columns by Position

The following code shows how to remove columns in specific positions:

#remove columns in position 1 and 4
df %>% select(-1, -4) 

  position points
1        G     12
2        F     15
3        F     19
4        G     22
5        G     32

Note: You can find the complete documentation for the select() function here.

Additional Resources

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations using dplyr:

How to Remove Rows Using dplyr
How to Remove Rows with NA Values Using dplyr
How to Select Columns by Index Using dplyr