There are a number of cases in which you may want to remove duplicates from a list of records using Google Sheets.
For example, you may want to remove duplicate records before importing a list of leads from a spreadsheet into a CRM system such as Salesforce — or into a marketing automation system like ActiveCampaign.
Despite all of Google’s human and artificial intelligence capabilities, Sheets does not have a very sophisticated deduplication logic… yet.
For example, Remove Duplicates will not merge the best data from two matching records into one. It simply keeps the matching record with the lower row number.
But, as a quick and easy way to deduplicate rows in a spreadsheet, Sheets Remove Duplicates does fine. Here’s how it works.
1. Import a source CSV file into a Google Sheet
In this example, we will remove duplicate rows based on a matching email address. You can see that we have a pair of matching records based on the email address.
2. Select all columns and rows.
3. From the menus, select Data > Remove Duplicates
4. In the Remove duplicates lightbox:
- Check the Data has a header row checkbox
- Uncheck Select All and then recheck the Email column
5. Click the Remove duplicates button.
You will see a confirmation message similar to the following:
Remember, a simple click on Undo will restore the matching records.