Highlight duplicated in excel

Sometimes duplicate data is useful, sometimes it just makes it harder to understand your data. Use conditional formatting to find and highlight duplicate data. That way you can review the duplicates and decide if you want to remove them.

1. Select the cells you want to check for duplicates.

   Note: Excel can’t highlight duplicates in the Values area of a PivotTable report.

2. Click Home > Conditional Formatting > Highlight Cells Rules > Duplicate Values.

   

3. In the box next to values with, pick the formatting you want to apply to the duplicate values, and then click OK.

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Remove duplicate values

When you use the Remove Duplicates feature, the duplicate data will be permanently deleted. Before you delete the duplicates, it’s a good idea to copy the original data to another worksheet so you don’t accidentally lose any information.

1. Select the range of cells that has duplicate values you want to remove.

2. Click Data > Remove Duplicates, and then Under Columns, check or uncheck the columns where you want to remove the duplicates.

   

   For example, in this worksheet, the January column has price information I want to keep.

   

   So, I unchecked January in the Remove Duplicates box.

   

3. Click OK.

Note: The counts of duplicate and unique values given after removal may include empty cells, spaces, etc. 

Need more help?

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Duplicate Values | Triplicates | Duplicate Rows

This example teaches you how to find duplicate values (or triplicates) and how to find duplicate rows in Excel.

Duplicate Values

To find and highlight duplicate values in Excel, execute the following steps.

1. Select the range A1:C10.

2. On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click Conditional Formatting.

3. Click Highlight Cells Rules, Duplicate Values.

4. Select a formatting style and click OK.

Result. Excel highlights the duplicate names.

Note: select Unique from the first drop-down list to highlight the unique names.

Triplicates

By default, Excel highlights duplicates (Juliet, Delta), triplicates (Sierra), etc. (see previous image). Execute the following steps to highlight triplicates only.

1. First, clear the previous conditional formatting rule.

2. Select the range A1:C10.

3. On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click Conditional Formatting.

4. Click New Rule.

5. Select ‘Use a formula to determine which cells to format’.

6. Enter the formula =COUNTIF($A$1:$C$10,A1)=3

7. Select a formatting style and click OK.

Result. Excel highlights the triplicate names.

Explanation: =COUNTIF($A$1:$C$10,A1) counts the number of names in the range A1:C10 that are equal to the name in cell A1. If COUNTIF($A$1:$C$10,A1) = 3, Excel formats cell A1. Always write the formula for the upper-left cell in the selected range (A1:C10). Excel automatically copies the formula to the other cells. Thus, cell A2 contains the formula =COUNTIF($A$1:$C$10,A2)=3, cell A3 =COUNTIF($A$1:$C$10,A3)=3, etc. Notice how we created an absolute reference ($A$1:$C$10) to fix this reference.

Note: you can use any formula you like. For example, use this formula =COUNTIF($A$1:$C$10,A1)>3 to highlight names that occur more than 3 times.

Duplicate Rows

To find and highlight duplicate rows in Excel, use COUNTIFS (with the letter S at the end) instead of COUNTIF.

1. Select the range A1:C10.

2. On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click Conditional Formatting.

3. Click New Rule.

4. Select ‘Use a formula to determine which cells to format’.

5. Enter the formula =COUNTIFS(Animals,$A1,Continents,$B1,Countries,$C1)>1

6. Select a formatting style and click OK.

Note: the named range Animals refers to the range A1:A10, the named range Continents refers to the range B1:B10 and the named range Countries refers to the range C1:C10. =COUNTIFS(Animals,$A1,Continents,$B1,Countries,$C1) counts the number of rows based on multiple criteria (Leopard, Africa, Zambia).

Result. Excel highlights the duplicate rows.

Explanation: if COUNTIFS(Animals,$A1,Continents,$B1,Countries,$C1) > 1, in other words, if there are multiple (Leopard, Africa, Zambia) rows, Excel formats cell A1. Always write the formula for the upper-left cell in the selected range (A1:C10). Excel automatically copies the formula to the other cells. We fixed the reference to each column by placing a $ symbol in front of the column letter ($A1, $B1 and $C1). As a result, cell A1, B1 and C1 contain the same formula, cell A2, B2 and C2 contain the formula =COUNTIFS(Animals,$A2,Continents,$B2,Countries,$C2)>1, etc.

7. Finally, you can use the Remove Duplicates tool in Excel to quickly remove duplicate rows. On the Data tab, in the Data Tools group, click Remove Duplicates.

In the example below, Excel removes all identical rows (blue) except for the first identical row found (yellow).

Note: visit our page about removing duplicates to learn more about this great Excel tool.

A duplicate value is a value that shows up more than once in a spreadsheet. These pop up all the time when working with datasets, and they can be tedious to sort through if you don’t know the quick ways to find them. Learn how to highlight duplicates in Excel to make the process take less than a minute!

You can even customize your settings to include only the second or third time the data appears, or highlight only specific types of duplicates. There are several ways to get the job done – we’ll use the same table in each example to keep things simple.

1. Highlight duplicates in a range of cells

One easy way to highlight duplicates in Excel is to use conditional formatting. Here’s how to do it:

• Enter your values and select the range where you want to find the duplicates. In this example, the range is C2:C13.

Note: You can download this sample file to save some time instead of typing in all the values manually:

• Navigate over to the Home Ribbon item and select Conditional Formatting.
• Select Highlight Cells Rules and choose to highlight duplicate values. You can use several colors to highlight the cell, the text, or both.
• The final result will look like this:

If you want to continue highlighting duplicates in your Excel spreadsheet as the list grows, just select column C and follow the same steps!

2. Highlight All Duplicate Values Except One

Let’s say you need to delete all duplicates from a spreadsheet but want to keep all unique values. If it has a lot of duplicates, it would still require you to manually sift through all the highlights to figure out which ones to get rid of.

By highlighting all duplicate values in Excel except for one, you’ll be able to easily see which ones can be kept and which ones can be eliminated.

• Start by using Sort & Filter to order column B alphabetically. This just makes it easier to compare the values.
• Select column B.
• Select Conditional Formatting and Highlight Cells Rules.
• From the drop-down menu, choose Use a formula to determine which cells to format.
• Insert the following formula: =COUNTIF($B$2:$B2,$B2)>1
• Choose your highlight color and click OK.

And that’s it! 

The COUNTIF function is used to count the number of cells that meet a certain criteria. In this case, the criteria is that the number of times a value is referenced is greater than 1 (seen as >1 in the above formula). 

You can use nearly the same formula to highlight data that only appears a second time:

 =COUNTIF($B$2:$B2,$B2)=2

 =COUNTIF($B$2:$B2,$B2)=3 can be used to highlight data that appears a third time, and so on.

3. Check multiple columns for duplicates

If you have a table with two columns or more and want to check for duplicates in the rows, the first two methods won’t work.

Our example table consists of two columns. So, Excel has to take both the Color and Model Number into consideration. We’ll also create a new column that merges the data.

• In cell D2, enter the formula =CONCAT(B2,C2). This column will contain the merged data.
• Use autofill to finish filling in the rest of the cells from D2:D13.
• Select all cells from B2:D13.
• Select Conditional Formatting and Highlight Cells Rules.
• From the drop-down menu, choose Use a formula to determine which cells to format. Choose a highlight color if you’d like.
• Enter the formula =COUNTIF($D$1:$D$13,$D1)>1 and select OK.

The final result will look like that! 

4. Highlight Consecutive Duplicate Values Only

Maybe you have a worksheet that has a few duplicates sprinkled in, but you only want to highlight the ones that are right next to each other in your dataset. There’s an easy way to do that, too!

• As usual, first select your data. That will be B2:B13 in this case.
• Select Conditional Formatting and Highlight Cells Rules.
• From the drop-down menu, choose Use a formula to determine which cells to format. 
• Enter the formula =OR(B2=B1,B2=B3)
• Select the formatting style you want and select OK.

Now, if your duplicate values aren’t consecutive, you won’t see any highlights. Head over to Sort & Filter, sort them alphabetically, and then you’ll see all the highlights pop up. 

If you try adding a non-consecutive duplicate – like a new row with Red up top – you’ll see that that one isn’t highlighted as it’s not beside the others.

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There are more ways to highlight Duplicates in Excel, but these methods are simple enough for everyday use and usually take less than a minute once you’ve got a little practice. 

Do you have any other interesting ways to highlight duplicates in Excel? Let us know in the comments!

• Excel

Guide to Understanding How to Highlight Duplicate Values in Excel

How to Highlight Duplicate Values in Excel

The following tutorial demonstrates the process of how to highlight duplicate values in Excel using the built-in conditional formatting feature.

This automated process can make sorting through and understanding a data set far more efficient.

How to Highlight Duplicate Values in Excel (Step-by-Step)

The quickest and most convenient method of identifying and highlighting duplicates in a data set is to utilize the conditional formatting feature in Excel.

Conditional formatting provides the ability to highlight duplicate entries, after which the user can either remove the duplicates or keep them as-is.

Duplicate values can often be the result of a system or error arising from manual entry, which in most cases would be subsequently removed.

On the other hand, the duplicate entries could be a normal occurrence (and thus might not need to be removed). For instance, a company might be wanting to identify recurring customers that have placed multiple orders in the past.

One side benefit of utilizing conditional formatting in Excel is that not only are duplicate values in the current range highlighted, but the conditional formatting can continuously check for duplicates as new entries roll-in, assuming the rule is set properly.

The process of highlighting the duplicate values in a selected range of data can be broken into four steps:

• Step 1 → Open the “Home” Tab
• Step 2 → Click on “Conditional Formatting” (Styles Group)
• Step 3 → Select “Highlight Cells Rules”
• Step 4 → Click on Duplicate Values…

Highlighting Duplicate Values with Conditional Formatting

The “Conditional Formatting” selection can be found on the Home tab in Excel, within the Styles group.

Within “Conditional Formatting”, the next step is to open the “Highlight Cell Rules” group, which displays a variety of rules that could be applied.

Near the bottom of the list, the “Duplicate Values…” selection is the one that we want to select, which should open the formatting style box in which duplicate entries will appear.

Upon clicking on “Duplicate Values…”, the following box should appear. You can either proceed with the default formatting setting (i.e. “Light Red Fill with Dark Red Text”) or customize the style.

If applicable to the task at hand, once the duplicate entries are highlighted, the “Remove Duplicates” option can then be selected in the “Data” tab (and “Data Tools” group”).

Highlight Duplicate Values Keyboard Shortcut

The following keyboard shortcut can be used to make the process above even more efficient.

Highlight Duplicate Values Shortcut = ALT → H → L → H → D

Note that each key should be pressed separately, not simultaneously.

Highlighting Duplicate Values with Excel COUNTIF Function

An alternative method to highlighting duplicate values is to create a formula-based rule.

By clicking on “New Rule”, rather than “Duplicate Values…”, the option to create a new formatting rule appears.

Selecting “Use a formula to determine which cells to format” shows the option to enter a custom formula in the “Format values where this formula is true”.

The formula used to highlight the duplicate values is as follows.

=COUNTIF(range, criteria)>1

• “range” → The selected range of cells in which the rule will find and highlight duplicates. In order for the conditional formatting to function correctly, the range must be anchored, i.e. an absolute reference (F4).
• “criteria” → The active cell can be any cell reference in the range. Unlike the range, the active cell should NOT be an absolute reference, as the formula is automatically copied across all cells in the chosen range.

If you want to highlight only the duplicates that appear more than two times, the “>1” can be replaced with “>2” – or if you want to highlight only values with an exact given number of duplicates, simply switch the “>” with “=”.

In comparison to the prior method, setting a custom rule tends to be more practical for more complicated tasks beyond highlighting simple duplicates.

For instance, the formula can be adjusted to count cells that meet a partial criterion, such as all cells that end in a specified string of text or digits.

Highlight Duplicate Values Calculator – Excel Model Template

We’ll now get started with our Excel tutorial. To access the spreadsheet used in our modeling exercise, fill out the form below.

Part 1. How to Highlight Duplicate Values Using Conditional Formatting

Suppose you’re reviewing the end-of-month invoices due to be paid out in the month of November 2022.

The task here is to confirm that there are no duplicates in the following data set before payments are issued.

Date	Invoice No.
11/30/2022	AR1D456-000X
11/30/2022	KD3S782-000X
11/30/2022	VB2Q920-000X
11/30/2022	AJ2T464-000X
11/30/2022	BP1G218-000X
11/30/2022	MI6B325-000X
11/30/2022	KE9Q460-000X
11/30/2022	ED5P631-000X
11/30/2022	AU9Z127-000X
11/30/2022	TD4N457-000X
11/30/2022	OB1J264-000X
11/30/2022	GL7M134-000X
11/30/2022	FA6W348-000X
11/30/2022	AD2E626-000X
11/30/2022	GW1U951-000X
11/30/2022	TR7M524-000X
11/30/2022	PE7J125-000X
11/30/2022	OB1J264-000X
11/30/2022	ZD1B982-000X
11/30/2022	AQ3Z327-000X

After selecting our range of invoice data and clicking the shortcut to highlight duplicates, we can see there is one duplicate right away, i.e. the cells formatted in red fill and red font.

Invoice number “OB1J264-000X” was mistakenly entered twice, so one of the entries must be removed to avoid mistakenly paying the recipient twice.

Part 2. How to Find Duplicate Values Using COUNTIF Function

In the next section of our Excel tutorial, we’ll perform the same task, but with the COUNTIF function.

The following formula would be entered into the rule box to highlight the duplicate values.

=COUNTIF($C$5:$C$24,C5)>1

Either approach works, as confirmed by how invoice number “OB1J264-000X” is highlighted here like before.

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Watch Video – How to Find and Remove Duplicates in Excel

With a lot of data…comes a lot of duplicate data. 

Duplicates in Excel can cause a lot of troubles. Whether you import data from a database, get it from a colleague, or collate it yourself, duplicates data can always creep in. And if the data you are working with is huge, then it becomes really difficult to find and remove these duplicates in Excel.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to find and remove duplicates in Excel.

Find and Highlight Duplicates in Excel

Duplicates in Excel can come in many forms. You can have it in a single column or multiple columns. There may also be a duplication of an entire row.

Finding and Highlight Duplicates in a Single Column in Excel

Conditional Formatting makes it simple to highlight duplicates in Excel.

Here is how to do it:

• Select the data in which you want to highlight the duplicates.

• Go to Home –> Conditional Formatting –> Highlight Cell Rules –> Duplicate Values.

• In the Duplicate Values dialog box, select Duplicate in the drop down on the left, and specify the format in which you want to highlight the duplicate values. You can choose from the ready-made format options (in the drop down on the right), or specify your own format.

• This will highlight all the values that have duplicates.

Quick Tip: Remember to check for leading or trailing spaces. For example, “John” and “John ” are considered different as the latter has an extra space character in it. A good idea would be to use the TRIM function to clean your data.

Finding and Highlight Duplicates in Multiple Columns in Excel

If you have data that spans multiple columns and you need to look for duplicates in it, the process is exactly the same as above.

Here is how to do it:

• Select the data.
• Go to Home –> Conditional Formatting –> Highlight Cell Rules –> Duplicate Values.
• In the Duplicate Values dialog box, select Duplicate in the drop down on the left, and specify the format in which you want to highlight the duplicate values.
• This will highlight all the cells that have duplicates value in the selected data set.

Finding and Highlighting Duplicate Rows in Excel

Finding duplicate data and finding duplicate rows of data are 2 different things. Have a look:

Finding duplicate rows is a bit more complex than finding duplicate cells.

Here are the steps:

• In an adjacent column, use the following formula:
  =A2&B2&C2&D2
  Drag this down for all the rows. This formula combines all the cell values as a single string. (You can also use the CONCATENATE function to combine text strings)

By doing this, we have created a single string for each row. If there are duplicate rows in this dataset, then these strings would be exactly the same for it.

Now that we have the combined strings for each row, we can use conditional formatting to highlight duplicate strings. A highlighted string implies that the row has a duplicate.

Here are the steps to highlight duplicate strings:

• Select the range that has the combined strings (E2:E16 in this example).
• Go to Home –> Conditional Formatting –> Highlight Cell Rules –> Duplicate Values.
• In the Duplicate Values dialog box, make sure Duplicate is selected and then specify the color in which you want to highlight the duplicate values.

This would highlight the duplicate values in column E.

In the above approach, we have highlighted only the strings that we created.

But what if you want to highlight all the duplicate rows (instead of highlighting cells in one single column)?

Here are the steps to highlight duplicate rows:

• In an adjacent column, use the following formula:
  =A2&B2&C2&D2
  Drag this down for all the rows. This formula combines all the cell values as a single string.

• Select the data A2:D16.
• With the data selected, go to Home –> Conditional Formatting –> New Rule.

• In the ‘New Formatting Rule’ dialog box, click on ‘Use a formula to determine which cells to format’.
• In the field below, use the following COUNTIF function:
  =COUNTIF($E$2:$E$16,$E2)>1

• Select the format and click OK.

This formula would highlight all the rows that have a duplicate.

Remove Duplicates in Excel

In the above section, we learned how to find and highlight duplicates in excel. In this section, I will show you how to get rid of these duplicates.

Remove Duplicates from a Single Column in Excel

If you have the data in a single column and you want to remove all the duplicates, here are the steps:

• Select the data.
• Go to Data –> Data Tools –> Remove Duplicates.
• In the Remove Duplicates dialog box:
  • If your data has headers, make sure the ‘My data has headers’ option is checked.
  • Make sure the column is selected (in this case there is only one column).

• Click OK.

This would remove all the duplicate values from the column, and you would have only the unique values.

CAUTION: This alters your data set by removing duplicates. Make sure you have a back-up of the original data set. If you want to extract the unique values at some other location, copy this dataset to that location and then use the above-mentioned steps. Alternatively, you can also use Advanced Filter to extract unique values to some other location.

Remove Duplicates from Multiple Columns in Excel

Suppose you have the data as shown below:

In the above data, row #2 and #16 have the exact same data for Sales Rep, Region, and Amount, but different dates (same is the case with row #10 and #13). This could be an entry error where the same entry has been recorded twice with different dates.

To delete the duplicate row in this case:

• Select the data.
• Go to Data –> Data Tools –> Remove Duplicates.
• In the Remove Duplicates dialog box:
  • If your data has headers, make sure the ‘My data has headers’ option is checked.
  • Select all the columns except the Date column.

• Click OK.

This would remove the 2 duplicate entries.

NOTE: This keeps the first occurrence and removes all the remaining duplicate occurrences.

Remove Duplicate Rows in Excel

To delete duplicate rows, here are the steps:

• Select the entire data.
• Go to Data –> Data Tools –> Remove Duplicates.
• In the Remove Duplicates dialog box:
  • If your data has headers, make sure the ‘My data has headers’ option is checked.
  • Select all the columns.

• Click OK.

Use the above-mentioned techniques to clean your data and get rid of duplicates.

You May Also Like the Following Excel Tutorials:

• 10 Ways to Clean Data in Excel Spreadsheets.
• Remove Leading and Trailing Spaces in Excel.
• 24 Daily Excel Issues and their Quick Fixes.
• How to Find Merged Cells in Excel.

It is very easy to find duplicates in Excel. We can use built in tools (Conditional Formats, Filters) or formula (COUNTIF or VLOOKUP)  to find duplicates in Excel Columns or Rows. Let us see the best and easy methods to find duplicate values in Excel.

Find duplicates Using Conditional Formatting

We can easily identify the duplicates using Conditional Formatting Tools in Excel. We can select the range and highlight the duplicate values with color.  Following are the different methods to find duplicate entries in excel and strikethrough the duplicates using Conditional Formatting.

Highlighting duplicate values in Excel

We can highlight the duplicate values in the Excel with specific color. We can change the fill color and font color for the duplicate values. Please follow the below steps to identify the duplicates.

• Select the required range of cell to find duplicates
• Go to ‘Home’ Tab in the Ribbon Menu
• Click on the ‘Conditional Formatting’ command
• Go to ‘Highlight Cells Rules’ and Click on ‘Duplicate Values…’
• And Choose the formatting Options from the drop down list and Click on ‘OK’

Now you can see that all the duplicate values are highlighted as shown in the screen-shot.

Strike through duplicate values in Excel

We can strike through the duplicate values in the Excel. It is very helpful to strike out all duplicate entries in a range of cells. We can use the conditional formatting command in Excel to strike through the duplicate Cells.

• Select the required range of cell to strike through the duplicates
• Go to ‘Home’ Tab in the Ribbon
• Click on the ‘Conditional Formatting’ command
• Go to ‘Highlight Cells Rules’ and Click on ‘Duplicate Values…’
• And Choose the Custom Format from formatting Options from the drop down list
• Select the Strikethrough option from Font effects and Click on ‘OK’

Now you can see that all the duplicate values are stroked out as shown in the screen-shot.

Formula for checking duplicates

We can create formula using COUNTIF or VLOOKUP Functions to check the duplicates in Excel. Following is the step by explanation for finding duplicate values using Excel Formula.

Finding Duplicates using COUNTIF Formula

We can use COUNTIF Formula in Excel Cells to identify duplicates in Excel. COUNTIF formula helps to find duplicates in One Column, returns the number of occurrences of a given value. We can identify the duplicates if the Count is greater than 1. We can create new column to mark the duplicates using Excel COUNTIF Formula.

You can see that we have enter the COUNTIF formula in Range B2 to check the total occurrences of A1 value in the entire Column A:A.This will return the frequency of each Cell value of Column A in Column B.

We can identify the duplicate Cells based on the value in the Column B. If the values is greater than 1, we confirm that the values contains duplicate entries in the specified range or column.

Mark Duplicates and Unique Entries using Formula

We can enhance the above formula to mark all duplicates in a Column. The following formula will return ‘Duplicate’ if the cell value contains duplicate values, otherwise returns ‘Unique’.

=IF(COUNTIF(A:A,A2)>1,"Duplicate","Unique")

Formula will return ‘Duplicate’ in the Column B if the value repeats (count >1).

It will return ‘Unique’ in the Column B if the count is 1.

Find duplicate values in excel using VLookup

We can use VLOOKUP formula to compare two columns (or lists) and find the duplicate values. Vlookup helps to find duplicates in Two Column and duplicate rows based on Multiple Columns. Following are steps to find duplicates using VLOOKUP function.

We have two lists in the Excel List 1 in Column A and List 2 in Column B. Let us find the duplicate values in the List 2 which are part of List 1.

=VLOOKUP(B2,$A$2:$A$15,1,FALSE)

VLOOKUP Formula will check for the Cell B2 value in the specified Range (A2:A5) and Returns the value if found, it will return #NA if it is not found in List 1. We can confirm if the the value is duplicated in List 1 and 2 if it returns the Value, it will be unique if it returns #NA.

How to find duplicate values in Excel using VlookUp?

You can use Excel formula to find the duplicate values in Excel by using vlookup formula as described below. You can use the Excel VlookUp to identify the duplicates in Excel.

=IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(B2,$A$2:$A$15,1,FALSE)),"Unique","Duplicate")

We can enhance this formula to identify the duplicates and unique values in the Column 2. We can use the Excel IF and ISNA Formulas along with VLOOKUP to return the required Labels.

You can use this method to compare with other worksheets and find duplicate values in Different Excel Sheets.

How to find duplicate values in two columns in excel using VlookUp?

Follow the below steps to find the duplicate values in two columns in excel using VlookUp. We generally need this to compare two columns and check if a value is existing in two columns.

=IF(IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(C2,$A$2:$A$15,1,FALSE)),0,1)
+IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(C2,$B$2:$B$15,1,FALSE)),0,1)=2,"Duplicated","Unique")

Here, we have Two Target Columns A and B , we check if the items in Column C are duplicated or not.

If you wants to compare two columns and check for values are repeated in both the columns or not, you can use this formula.

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2 Comments

1. Guru
   August 12, 2019 at 7:45 pm — Reply

   Thanks for very useful instructions to check duplicates in Excel.

2. Tom
   August 12, 2019 at 7:48 pm — Reply

   This is very clear and simple! Thanks a lot for providing clear help to identify the duplicates in Excel.