How to Remove Duplicates in Google Sheets

Jordan Hughes
52 minutes ago
1 min read

Google Sheets makes removing duplicates from your spreadsheets simple, with built-in tools to clean up your data.

Whether you’re managing a project list, tracking inventory, or organising survey results from Google Forms, double entries lead to inaccurate reporting, and no one wants that.

We will look at how to delete the duplicates utilising the data menu and how to create new, clean data using the =UNIQUE formula.

Using the Data menu

Step 1 - Select the data range you want to check for duplicates.

Step 2 - Click the Data menu, then Data clean-up, and finally 'Remove duplicates'.

Spreadsheet interface showing a dropdown menu with data options. "Data clean-up" is selected, revealing tasks like "Remove duplicates."

Step 3 - A window will appear asking which columns to analyse. If you have titled headers like date, cost, actioned, etc, then make sure you select 'Data has a header row'. Select the boxes of the columns you would like to check for duplicates.

Then click 'Remove duplicates' to delete the duplicate data.

A pop-up titled "Remove duplicates" shows columns selected in a spreadsheet. Options include Column A to H. Buttons: Cancel, Remove duplicates.

Using the =UNIQUE formula

You might want to check for duplicates, but instead of deleting them from your current data, create a new list minus the duplicates. For this, we would use the =UNIQUE formula.

Step 1 - All you need to do is direct the formula to your messy data. We have started our formula =UNIQUE, then selected the data and added a closed bracket. Once we hit enter, a new, clean list will appear.