One of the widely used applications, Microsoft Excel is a part and parcel of your everyday business. For every requisite in managing and reporting the crucial data, MS Excel is the go-to software. However, at times, using and accessing the Excel workbook might get tricky and confusing. Scroll further to understand how to remove duplicates in MS Excel with the help of easy steps.
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And, this is not just you; count yourself amongst the thousands of others who go through the same issues.
One of such important tasks to be done in MS Excel is the removal of duplicates. This function gets even more critically important when you work with huge datasets.
If you are stuck at removing duplicates in Excel, this article will help you adequately.
Steps to Quickly Remove Duplicates in MS Excel
MS Excel already has a tool that is built-in to help you with the deletion of repeated entries in a given data set. Here are the further steps to learn how to remove duplicates in Excel:
Step 1: The foremost step includes choosing a particular cell or a defined range of your wish from which you are looking forward to getting the duplicates removed. Once you have clicked on a particular cell, Excel will auto-determine the respective range for the next step.
Step 2: Go to Data and choose Data Tools. Look for the Remove Duplicates option. Then hit it.
Step 3: You would see a dialogue box appearing. Choose the columns for which you want to compare and look for duplicate data. If the data you are looking into has column headers, in that case, choose My data has headers and tap on OK.
When you are checking the header, the immediate first row will not be taken into consideration for the removal of duplicate values.
Step 4: The deletion of duplicate rows will begin and a dialogue box will be displayed. This dialogue box will contain the summarized information about how many duplicate values are detected and considered for removal. Along with this information, you will be also shown the count of unique values.
With this, the duplicate records will be removed.
With this, of course, your primary requisite to delete duplicates in MS Excel is solved. However, if you wish to know about an alternative method with which you can too delete the duplicates in MS Excel, then that method is the usage of the Advanced Filter Option.
Remove Duplicates in MS Excel Using Advanced Filter Option
Understanding how the Advanced Filter Option works, can be simply defined as the method in which you would be able to filter duplicate values, along with copying the unique values to a separate location.
Here are the steps for using the Advanced Filter Option, helping you to understand how to remove duplicates in MS Excel.
Step 1: The foremost step includes choosing a particular cell or a defined range of your wish from which you are looking forward to getting the duplicates removed. Once you have clicked on a particular cell, Excel will auto-determine the respective range on clicking the Advanced Filter.
Step 2: Go to Data and choose Sort & Filter. Find the Advanced option and click on it.
Step 3: You would see a dialogue box appearing. This dialogue box will have listed options for advanced filtering.
Step 4: For copying unique values to a separate location, choose Copy to another location.
Step 5: Under List Range, verify the range of the respective records and ensure that this range has been clearly specified.
Step 6: Enter the range on the Copy to: field. This is where the resultant unique values should be copied.
Step 7: Look for the Unique records only box and click OK. The unique values would need to be copied to cell G1.
Feeling much confident in knowing about how to remove duplicates in MS Excel? Hopefully, this article has assisted you effectively in knowing about how to remove duplicates in MS Excel.
Following the steps mentioned above, it would be quite easier for you to remove duplicates in MS Excel. If you feel this article helped you with understanding the removal of duplicates on MS Excel, stay tuned for such engrossing and educative tutorials.
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Frequently Asked Questions (Faqs)
Why would I Need to Consider Removing Duplicates in MS Excel?
When you work with massive datasets on MS Excel, primarily you would be needing to remove duplicates. This is because combining various tables and having other members access the sheets might lead to duplication of data. To avoid data redundancy, you need to remove duplicates in MS Excel.
The chances of duplicates get higher with the data set being larger.
Can I Remove Duplicates in MS Excel by using Formulas?
Yes. You can remove duplicates in MS Excel by using formulas that essentially combines the columns and find out the duplicate count:
Use concatenation operator “&” for choosing to combine columns as A, B, and C. To do this, you would need the formula – =A2&B2&C2
Enter the formula in the D2 cell and copy the rest to all the down rows
Take another column and name as Count which will locate the duplicates placed in Column D. To do this, you would need the formula – =COUNTIF($D$2:D2, D2) (Value of count 1 = data appears only once, Value of count 2 = duplicate value)
Choose Data for adding a filter to the Count column
Tap on Sort & Filter section and select Filter
Tap the filter located at the top of Column E and make a selection on 1 which will keep the unique values and erase the duplicates
Click OK for removing the duplicate values