How to Find Duplicates in Microsoft Excel?

One of the daily activities that you perform for your business is working on Microsoft Excel. In business decorum, working with huge data usually takes place in MS Excel. Be it a large business or medium-sized business, updating the Excel sheet with sales data or performance data is a pivotal action you need to perform. Here you get the answer for your question how to find duplicates in microsoft excel?.

And for this indispensable action, you need to know the basics and intricate details of the MS Excel software. One such detailing action on MS Excel is to look for duplicates. The most essential reason that can be encircled for finding duplicates in Microsoft Excel is when you are working with a massive amount of data.

A detailed Excel sheet or working on an associated set of MS Excel sheets might have lots of duplicate rows, and thus hunting these duplicates is very vital.

This article will further help you to understand and learn how to find duplicates in Microsoft Excel. You can use formulas to identify duplicates or look for them.

Steps to Find Duplicates in Microsoft Excel

Scroll to the next sections that take you through a step-wise, detailed manner on how to find the duplicates in MS Excel.

Let’s begin now!

Step 1: The first step you need to start with while finding the duplicates in MS Excel is to choose the initial range of cells amongst which you want to look for duplicates.

In the following image would find the selected range to be A1:C10

Step 2: Go to the Home Tab and click on Styles Group.

Step 3: Choose Conditional Formatting.

Step 4: Tap on the Highlight Cells Rules and select Duplicate Values.

Step 5: For the next step, choose a formatting style and hit OK. You would see at this step, that Excel will highlight the names that are duplicated.

If you wish to have the duplicates highlighted, then choose the unique option which is located in the first drop-down list.

Steps to Find the Duplicate Rows in Microsoft Excel

In the next section, you would now be taken through the steps that are involved in finding the duplicate rows in MS Excel.

Step 1: The first step you need to start with while finding the duplicate rows in Microsoft Excel is to choose the initial range of cells amongst which you want to look for duplicates.

In the following image would find the selected range to be A1:C10.

Step 2: Go to the Home Tab and click on Styles Group.

Step 3: Choose Conditional Formatting.

Step 4: Select New Rule.

Step 5: In this step, you need to use a formula that will show the respective cells that needed to be formatted. Hit on the option that says, Use a formula to determine which cells to format.

Step 6: The formula for finding the duplicate rows in Microsoft Excel is =IF(COUNTIFS($A$2:$A$8,$A2,$B$2:$B$8,$B2,$C$2:$C$8,$C2)>1. Use this formula.

Step 7: For the next step, choose a formatting style and hit OK. You would see at this step, that Excel will highlight the names that are duplicated.

Step 8: Go to the Data tab and choose the Data Tools group.

Step 9: Tap on Remove Duplicates.

Steps to Find Triplicates in Microsoft Excel

Another interesting section of finding the duplicates in MS Excel is to look for triplicates. Finding triplicates is equally easy as finding the duplicates in MS Excel.

Here’s how you can get started with finding the duplicates in MS Excel:

Step 1: The first step you need to start with while finding the triplicates in MS Excel is to clear away the conditional formatting rule that was set previously.

Step 2: Choose the initial range of cells amongst which you want to look for duplicates.

In the following image would find the selected range to be A1:C10

Step 3: Go to the Home Tab and click on Styles Group.

Step 4: Choose Conditional Formatting.

Step 5: Select New Rule.

Step 6: In this step, you need to use a formula that will show the respective cells that needed to be formatted. The formula for finding the triplicates in MS Excel is =COUNTIF($A$1:$C$10,A1)=3. Use this formula

Step 7: For the next step, choose a formatting style and hit OK. You would see at this step, that Excel will highlight the names that are duplicated.

If you wish to find and highlight names that have been occurring for more than thrice, you can use the formula =COUNTIF($A$1:$C$10,A1)>3 for the same.

Hopefully now finding duplicates in Microsoft Excel is way easier than before. If you are stuck in between while finding duplicates or triplicates in Microsoft Excel, follow the steps mentioned above and you can get this done in very little time with higher efficacy.

Thus, if you feel that this article was helpful for you to find duplicates in Microsoft Excel in an efficient and effective manner, look out for this space for such elaborative MS Excel tutorial articles.

---