How to Remove Duplicates in Excel
Delete duplicate rows, flag them without deleting, or roll them up by a key column — the built-in way, with formulas, or in one click.
Last updated: August 2026
| Order | Customer | Kept? | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1001 | Acme | → | Kept (first) |
| 1001 | Acme | → | Removed |
| 1002 | Beta | → | Kept |
Method 1 — Excel's Remove Duplicates (built-in)
- Click any cell inside your table (or select the exact range, including headers).
- Go to Data → Remove Duplicates.
- Tick the columns that define a duplicate. To dedupe on one field only (say Email), tick just that column.
- Click OK. Excel keeps the first occurrence and deletes the rest, then tells you how many it removed.
Note: this is case-insensitive but space-sensitive — "Acme " with a trailing space won't match "Acme". Clean the column first if your data has stray spaces.
Method 2 — Find duplicates without deleting
- Highlight them: Home → Conditional Formatting → Highlight Cell Rules → Duplicate Values.
- Count them: add a helper column with
=COUNTIF(B:B, B2)— any value above 1 is a repeat. - Mark the repeats:
=IF(COUNTIF(B$2:B2, B2)>1, "Duplicate", "")flags the 2nd occurrence onward.
The 1-click way — Tellsheet
Remove Duplicates drops repeat rows with a full before/after preview (and it's revertable). Flag Duplicates marks repeats without deleting — by the whole row or one key column, ignoring case and spaces. Merge Duplicates rolls repeats into one row, summing numbers or joining their values. All three are point-and-click, no formulas.
Frequently asked questions
Does Remove Duplicates keep the first or last row?
Excel keeps the first occurrence and deletes later ones. Sort your data first if a particular row must survive. Tellsheet also keeps the first occurrence.
How do I find duplicates without deleting them?
Use conditional formatting, a COUNTIF formula, or Tellsheet's Flag Duplicates tool, which adds a column marking each repeat so nothing is removed.
How do I remove duplicates based on one column only?
Tick only that column in Remove Duplicates. Tellsheet lets you dedupe by the whole row or a single key column, ignoring case and surrounding spaces.
Why didn't Excel remove an obvious duplicate?
Almost always trailing spaces or hidden characters. Run a Trim/Clean pass first — Tellsheet's Clean tool (free) removes stray and non-printable characters in one click.
Related Excel guides
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