Compare columns or sheets for duplicates in Google Sheets (2024)

Start the tool

Find Compare Sheets in the Extensions menu and run Compare sheets for duplicates:

Step 1: Select sheets to compare

Choose all the sheets and ranges you'd like to compare:

1. To select all sheets from the tree view for comparison at once, tick off the Sheets checkbox.
2. To add more sheets to the tree view, click Add files from Drive.

   Tip. You can quickly locate the desired spreadsheet in Drive using the quick search field. Just enter the part of the file name into the Search field of the Import files from Drive window and hit Find. The tool will scan your entire Drive, shared files or Drives (if any), and even starred items and display the list of all files with partial or complete name matches.

   If you're not sure where these spreadsheets are located, simply hover your mouse cursor over the spreadsheet of interest and you'll see a tip with its full path:
   

   Tip. To add several spreadsheets from your Drive to the add-on in one go, click on them by holding Ctrl (for non-adjacent) or Shift (for adjacent) pressed on your keyboard. The files will be highlighted in light blue. Then press Add to see them in the tree view.

3. If you change your mind about any spreadsheet, select it and click Exclude to remove it from the comparison.
4. By default, the add-on compares All data (till the first empty row and column) from each selected sheet. To alter it, click this field and do one of the following:
   • Enter the range address in this field using your keyboard.
   • Click the Select range icon and pick the necessary cells right on the sheet.
   • Click the Select range icon and hit Auto select. The add-on will automatically pick the used range with all the data you have:
     

     Note. If you want to delete duplicates rather than just color them, it's best to select the whole table so that the add-on removes entire rows avoiding data corruption.

Click Next to proceed to the second step..

Step 2: Select the main sheet

Choose the sheet that will be treated as your main one:

This sheet will serve as a reference for comparison with all other sheets. The results will show the relation between the main and other compared sheets.

Tip. The sheets are organized by the spreadsheets they belong to, which can be particularly beneficial if there are multiple sheets with identical names.

Choose Next to proceed to the next step, or Back to change the comparison sheets.

Step 3: Decide what to find

The add-on allows you to find unique or repeated values in all tables:

• Pick Duplicate values to look for the records that exist in the main and every other compared sheet.

  Note. Only complete matches are treated as duplicates. Partial matches are not considered duplicates.

  

  Note. The found records will be identified on the sheets selected on the last step.

• Choose Unique values to find those entries that appear in every other sheet but the main one:
  

Click Next to select the columns to compare.

Step 4: Pick the columns to compare

On this step, you will see a list of columns in your main table. Select the checkboxes next to those key columns that you want to compare in your sheets and pick the related columns from other compared sheets.

Tip. If you select more than one column, a row will be considered duplicate if the values in all these columns are the same:

1. If your tables have header rows, make sure to tick off the checkboxes Main table has headers and Other tables have headers respectively to see the column titles. If you don't have headers, unselect these boxes to display column names.
2. You can use the 1st row content fields to see what kind of data you have in your main table columns.
3. If you want to look for complete row duplicates, select all columns by using this checkbox in the header row.
4. Automatically select all columns that have the same headers in all tables by using the Auto detect button.
5. Check the Skip empty cells box to ignore duplicate blanks in the selected columns. Otherwise, blank matches will be considered duplicates.
6. Use the Match case option to consider those records that differ only in the text case as uniques.
7. Make sure to indicate the corresponding Other tables columns by clicking the down arrow for each of them and picking the necessary column from the drop-down list.

Once everything is set, press Next to proceed to the last step.

Step 5: What to do with the results

There are 7 (seven) ways to deal with the found values:

Choose the action

• Color the rows with the found values by picking the Fill with color option. Click on the down arrow next to this option to choose a hue you'd like to use.
• Add a status column to the found records:
  

  Tip. You'll be able to sort out duplicates/uniques easily after that.

• Decide to Copy to another location and have the results in a new sheet, new spreadsheet, or any custom location (existing sheet in the current file).

  When copying from multiple sheets to a new spreadsheet, there's an extra checkbox: Values from each table to separate sheets. Use it to put the dupes/uniques from each compared table into a separate file.

  Tip. The Custom location option lets you pick a destination cell in one of the existing sheets:
  
  Just click the Select range icon and pick the top-left cell for the result directly from the sheet:
  

• The same goes for the Move to another location option. The values will be cut and pasted to a place of your choice.
• Pick Clear values to remove the found records in the selected columns and leave all other data intact.
• You can also remove all rows with the found dupes using the Delete rows within selection option.
• Or have the entire rows removed from the sheet even outside your selected tables with the last setting — Delete entire rows from the sheet.

Add cross-sheet links is available for each action except deleting. It will insert hyperlink references next to the found dupes so you could quickly navigate across all found instances in the compared sheets and see the source sheets of each record.

Apply the action to

Since the add-on compares multiple sheets now and looks for the values across them all, you can choose where those dupes or uniques will be processed once they're found:

• Main sheet. To color, remove, etc. found values only in the main sheet:
  
• Other compared sheets. To process found dupes or uniques on all sheets but the main one:
  
• All sheets. To apply the action to all duplicate or unique values across all sheets: main and other compared sheets:
  

Click Compare to find duplicate or unique values and process them with the chosen action on the chosen sheets.

See the result

Once the add-on completes the search, you will see the summary of the results with the number of found values and the action that was applied to them:

To save these settings and use them in the future, click Save scenario.

Tip. If you'd like to run the add-on again, click on the Start over button.

What is a scenario

A scenario is a saved set of those options that you select in the add-on on each step. You will have a chance to save the settings right after the add-on processes your data. Then, you just run this scenario and the tool compares your data. Pretty cool, huh? :)

Save the scenario

When the add-on finishes combining duplicate rows and shows you the result message, click Save scenario:

You will see a short summary of all options you have used just now — this is your scenario preview:

1. Name your scenario so you could understand what it does and quickly find it among other scenarios.
2. Choose your tables to compare:
   • Pick [Selected sheet] and the add-on will treat your currently active sheet when running the scenario as a main one.

     Note. This option is available for Main sheet only.

   • Select specific sheets from the lists to compare particular tables.
3. Identify ranges to process in the main and other compared sheets:
   • Select [All data] to automatically detect the entire used ranges for work.
   • To handle the exact cells, simply enter the desired ranges of cells.
4. Scroll down to look through the options you're about to save to make sure everything is correct:
   

   Note. These options cannot be changed. To modify them, you will need to restart the add-on and pick the correct settings on all steps over again.

Once you're all set, click Save and the scenario will be created.

Run your scenario

To start the scenario, go to your add-on (Compare Sheets, Remove Duplicates or Power Tools) in the Extensions menu, find Scenarios, select the required scenario and click Start.

Note. If you don't see Scenarios in the menu, just run the add-on itself once. This is necessary for new spreadsheets and those where the add-on hasn't been run yet. Your scenario (and all future ones) will then appear in the menu automatically.

This will run Compare Sheets with all the necessary settings right away.

Once it's done, you will get the result message saying what scenario has just worked and what it's processed:

Manage scenarios

To view the scenario or to change the sheets and the ranges for comparison, go to the same Scenarios menu, pick the scenario and select Edit this time:

You will see the same scenario outline:

You can give it a new name and select other sheets & ranges.

If you make any changes, press Save to keep them. Click Run to start the scenario right away, or hit Delete to remove it completely.