Highlighting duplicates in Excel in a couple of clicks – For this example, I’ve created the following table with a few hundred rows. And our aim is to highlight duplicate rows that have equal values in all three columns: Believe it or not, you can get the desired result with just 2 mouse clicks 🙂
- With any cell in your table selected, click the Dedupe Table button, and the clever add-in will pick up the whole table.
- The Dedupe Table dialog window will open with all the columns selected automatically, and the Color duplicates option chosen by default. So, all you have to do is click OK 🙂 Done!
Tip. If you want to detect duplicate rows by one or more columns, uncheck all irrelevant columns and leave only the key column(s) selected. 
And the result would look similar to this: As you see in the above image, the Dupe Table tool has highlighted duplicate rows without first instances, If you want to highlight duplicates including first occurrences, or if you want to color unique records rather than dupes, or if you don’t like the default red color, then use the Duplicate Remover wizard that has all these features and a lot of more.
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What is the shortcut key for highlight duplicates in Excel?
In ‘highlight cells rules,’ select duplicate values, as shown in the following image. Alternatively, press the shortcut. read more keys ‘ Alt+H+L+H+D ‘ one by one. The ‘duplicate values’ dialog box opens, as shown in the following image.
How do I filter and highlight duplicates in Excel?
– You can edit an existing rule and modify it to apply conditional formatting to unique or duplicate data.
Select one or more cells in a range, table, or PivotTable report. On the Home tab, under Format, click the arrow next to Conditional Formatting, and then click Manage Rules, Make sure that the appropriate sheet or table is selected on the Show formatting rules for pop-up menu. Select the rule, and then click Edit Rule, Select the options that you want, and then click OK,
What is the formula for detecting duplicates in Excel?
COUNTIF to Find Duplicates – The duplicate-checking formula uses =COUNTIF to “count” which cells contain data that appears more than once throughout the spreadsheet. Resulting values can either be “TRUE” (indicating duplicate data) or “FALSE” (showing non-duplicate data).
Copy and paste this formula into the first cell of a blank column: =COUNTIF(A:A,A1)>1 Change the A in the formula to coincide with the letter of the cell column you wish to find duplicatesDrag the cell’s contents down to the cells below
That’s it; any duplicate data will be identified in the new column as “TRUE” while non-duplicate data is indicated as “FALSE.” Next, you can sort by your count column and see all of the duplicates (or non-dupes) bunched together. In contrast to the visual method, this is a quick way to not only identify but remove, duplicates. There are tweaks you can make to this general formula if you wish to customize the value results. For instance, you may want duplicate data to be identified as “Duplicate” instead of the default “TRUE” or “Unique” instead of “FALSE.” Or, remove the >1 and you’ll see the number of copies, which could be more than two. Those customizations aside, we still haven’t covered all the ways you can find duplicates in Excel.
How do you highlight matching cells in Excel?
Excel for Microsoft 365 for Mac Excel 2021 for Mac Excel 2019 for Mac Excel 2016 for Mac More.Less Conditional formatting makes it easy to highlight certain values or make particular cells easy to identify. This changes the appearance of a cell range based on a condition (or criteria). And here’s an example with 3-color scale conditional formatting applied: Apply conditional formatting
Select the range of cells, the table, or the whole sheet that you want to apply conditional formatting to. On the Home tab, click Conditional Formatting, Do one of the following:
| To highlight | Do this |
| Values in specific cells. Examples are dates after this week, or numbers between 50 and 100, or the bottom 10% of scores. | Point to Highlight Cells Rules or Top/Bottom Rules, and then click the appropriate option. |
| The relationship of values in a cell range. Extends a band of color across the cell. Examples are comparisons of prices or populations in the largest cities. | Point to Data Bars, and then click the fill that you want. |
| The relationship of values in a cell range. Applies a color scale where the intensity of the cell’s color reflects the value’s placement toward the top or bottom of the range. An example is sales distributions across regions. | Point to Color Scales, and then click the scale that you want. |
| A cell range that contains three to five groups of values, where each group has its own threshold. For example, you might assign a set of three icons to highlight cells that reflect sales below $80,000, below $60,000, and below $40,000. Or you might assign a 5-point rating system for automobiles and apply a set of five icons. | Point to Icon Sets, and then click a set. |
Apply conditional formatting to text
Select the range of cells, the table, or the whole sheet that you want to apply conditional formatting to. On the Home tab, click Conditional Formatting, point to Highlight Cells Rules, and then click Text that Contains, In the box next to containing, type the text that you want to highlight, and then click OK,
Create a custom conditional formatting rule
Select the range of cells, the table, or the whole sheet that you want to apply conditional formatting to. On the Home tab, click Conditional Formatting, and then click New Rule, Select a style, for example, 3-Color Scale, select the conditions that you want, and then click OK,
Format only unique or duplicate cells
Select the range of cells, the table, or the whole sheet that you want to apply conditional formatting to. On the Home tab, click Conditional Formatting, point to Highlight Cells Rules, and then click Duplicate Values, In the values in the selected range pop-up menu, click unique or duplicate,
Copy conditional formatting to additional cells
Select the cell that has the conditional formatting that you want to copy. On the Home tab, click Format, and then select the cells where you want to copy the conditional formatting.
Find cells that have conditional formatting If only some part of your sheet has conditional formatting applied, you can quickly locate the cells that are formatted so that you can copy, change, or delete the formatting of those cells.
Click any cell. If you want to find only cells with a specific conditional format, start by clicking a cell that has that format. On the Edit menu, click Find, and then click Go To, Click Special, and then click Conditional formats, If you want to locate only cells with the specific conditional format of the cell that you selected in step 1, under Options, click Same,
Clear conditional formatting from a selection
Select the cells that have the conditional formatting that you want to remove. On the Home tab, click Conditional Formatting, point to Clear Rules, and then click the option that you want. Tip: To remove all conditional formats and all other cell formats for selected cells, on the Edit menu, point to Clear, and then click Formats,
Change a conditional formatting rule You can customize the default rules for conditional formats to fit your requirements. You can change comparison operators, thresholds, colors, and icons.
Click in the range that contains the conditional formatting rule that you want to change. On the Home tab, click Conditional Formatting, and then click Manage Rules, Select the rule, and then click Edit Rule, Make the changes that you want, click OK, and then click OK again.
Delete a conditional formatting rule You can delete conditional formats that you no longer need.
Click in the range that contains the conditional formatting rule that you want to change. On the Home tab, click Conditional Formatting, and then click Manage Rules, Select the rule, and then click in the lower-left. Click OK,
How do you find and keep duplicates in Excel?
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To open a query, locate one previously loaded from the Power Query Editor, select a cell in the data, and then select Query > Edit, For more information see Create, load, or edit a query in Excel, Select a column by clicking the column header. To select more than one column contiguously or discontiguously, press Shift+Click or CTRL+Click on each subsequent column. Select Home > Keep Rows > Keep Duplicates,
What is the fastest way to find duplicates in Excel?
In this tutorial, you will learn how to automatically highlight duplicates in Excel once something has been typed. We are going to have a close look at how to shade duplicate cells, entire rows, or consecutive dupes using conditional formatting and a special tool.
- Last week, we explored different ways to identify duplicates in Excel with formulas.
- Undoubtedly, those solutions are very useful, but highlighting duplicate entries in a certain color could make data analysis even easier.
- The fastest way to find and highlight duplicates in Excel is using conditional formatting,
The biggest advantage of this method is that it not only shows dupes in the existing data but automatically checks new data for duplicates right when you enter it in a worksheet. These techniques work in all versions of Excel 365, Excel 2021, Excel 2019, Excel 2016, Excel 2013, Excel 2010 and lower.
How do you check if there are duplicates in spreadsheet?
How to highlight duplicates in multiple rows or columns in Google Sheets – If you have duplicate data in multiple rows or columns, repeat steps one to three from above, but change the custom duplicate checking formula to =COUNTIF($A:$Z,Indirect(Address(Row(),Column(),)))>1, Tip : If you only want to scan for duplicates in specific rows or columns, simply update the data range under Apply range to match the cell range you want to check for repeats. Customize how your duplicates will appear on the spreadsheet under Formatting style, Then click Done, 
How do I find duplicates in Excel using VLOOKUP?
How do I filter duplicates in Excel? – To find duplicates in Excel, you can use VLOOKUP to create a custom formula. If you have two lists, 1 and 2, and need to check for data across each, you use the formula =VLOOKUP(List-1, List-2,True,False). The List-1 data will be searched in List-2. If there are any duplicates, then these will be listed in the third column where the formula was placed.
Why isn’t Excel highlighting duplicates?
Excel not recognizing duplicates If you come across situations where Excel is not recognizing duplicates you may need to investigate further to see what is happening. As a rule, if Excel says it is not a duplicate, then it is not a duplicate. Just because you think it is does not mean you are correct.
As per the, the format of data causes a problem with the Remove Duplicates button. In most cases Excel does not care if a number is for example shown as Excel sees it as 10 and considers it a duplicate. However the Remove Duplicate tool does not.
Probably the most common cause of Excel not recognizing duplicates. Check if the one cell has trailing, leading or extra spaces in the cell. Excel sees the space as an individual character but humans tend to ignore it. Trailing spaces are especially difficult to spot as the human has no reference point.
Leading spaces will cause a slight misalignment, extra spaces just look slightly too big, but trailing spaces are invisible to humans. You may need to remove these spaces. You can see how to remove spaces in the A more common problem recently, there is a type of space which Excel sees as a ‘different’ space from the one generated when you click the space bar.
To see if this the issue, copy the ‘space’ and paste it into the Find/ Replace tool and ‘replace’ it with the more common space character generated by the space button on the keyboard. See more on this in the
How do you identify duplicates between two columns in Excel?
Conditional Formatting – Navigate to the “Home” option and select duplicate values in the toolbar. Next, navigate to Conditional Formatting in Excel Option. 
A new window will appear on the screen with options to select “Duplicate” and “Unique” values. You can compare the two columns with matching values or unique values.
How do I compare duplicates in multiple sheets?
C. How Do You Use the EXACT Function to Find Duplicates Across Worksheets? – The EXACT function in Excel can also be used to look for duplicates within the same cells in two different Excel worksheets. The syntax is: =EXACT(text1, text2)
- text1 is the first text string that you want to compare.
- text2 is the second text string that you want to compare.
Follow these steps:
- Select cell B2.
- Type the formula =EXACT(A2, Sheet2!A2)
- Press Enter to display the comparison result. The formula will return TRUE if both values are identical or FALSE otherwise.
- Fill down the formula to compare the values for the rest of the rows in the first sheet.
Note that this method doesn’t search for duplicates across a cell range. Instead, you are only looking for matches based on the same cell in a different sheet. This can be useful with ordered data where you only expect a few exceptions. The VLOOKUP, COUNTIF, and EXACT functions are useful for finding duplicates, but Excel is a versatile program, and there are other options.
What is the shortcut for highlighting duplicates?
Shortcut to highlight duplicates in a data set – ” – Ready for the ultimate shortcut for highlighting duplicates? Try this, highlight your array that you want to check for duplicates in with the shortcut Ctrl + A. Then use the shortcut keys in this sequence, Alt + H + L + H + D.
What is the shortcut for duplicate formula?
Formulae – With a formula, select the cell you want to copy, then drag down to select the cells you want to duplicate the formula into. Press CTRL+D and your formula is duplicated into each cell in your selection. Duplicating like this only works from top to bottom, so whatever is in the top-most cell of your selection is duplicated. It does work with multiple columns though
What is the shortcut key for duplicate?
The Duplicate Shortcut (Ctrl+D) – CTRL + D The duplicate shortcut creates a duplicate copy of your selected object (shape, text box, line, chart, table, etc.) and all of its text and/or object formatting. On top of that, the duplicate shortcut has a secret hidden feature that kicks in when you use it two or three times in a row (I’ll explain further below).