MnAl ribbons have been successfully nanostructured by applying cold-rolling. The use of this mechanical process deforms the as-spun ribbons and increases the density of defects in the material. The microstructural characterization of the cold-rolled samples has been performed by SEM and XRD and has allowed studying the evolution of the surface of the ribbons with the number of the passes increasing. These microstructural changes, in addition to the crystallization of β-phase during the annealing step, have successfully modified the magnetic properties of the as-spun ribbons, raising the coercivity from 1.5 to 3.5 kOe. Remarkably, this large increase in coercivity is accompanied by only an 8% decrease in remanence by comparison with that of the starting ribbons, achieving values above 35 emu/g for all the cold-rolled and annealed samples.