How to dedupe Excel table

On this page, you will find the step-by-step instructions on how to work with the Quick Dedupe tool.

Video: Remove dupes in Excel quickly

Before you start

Keep an eye on the Backup the worksheet option. We recommend selecting it as Excel doesn't let you cancel changes made by add-ins.

How to use Quick Dedupe

Start Quick Dedupe

Select the range you are going to dedupe or a single cell within a dataset to get the whole table highlighted by the add-in automatically.

Click the Quick Dedupe icon in the Dedupe group on the Ablebits Data tab:
Start Quick Dedupe.

Tweak the settings and get the result

You can see the Quick Dedupe window with its options:
Dedupe Excel list.

  1. Check this box if you have header rows so that the needed columns are found easily.
  2. If your table has empty cells, you can exclude them from the search by selecting this checkbox.
  3. If you wish the add-in to disregard extra spaces, check Ignore extra spaces.
  4. If you check Case-sensitive match, values which differ only in case (as, for example, “street” and “Street”) will not be treated as duplicates. If you uncheck this option, such values will be identified as dupes.
  5. Tick the columns that you want to dedupe in your table.
    Note. If you select more than one column, the add-in will look for duplicate rows. E.g. if you select 2 columns, only those records that have the same values in both columns will be considered dupes.
  6. Look through the entries in 1st row content to make sure you've selected the right columns.
  7. Click the Select All and Unselect All buttons to quickly select or deselect all columns.
  8. We recommend keeping this box checked to have all your data saved - Excel won't let you cancel the results of deduplication.
  9. Open the drop-down menu and choose how you want the add-in to process duplicates in your dataset:
    Select the dedupe option.

    • Remove the rows with the found duplicates.
    • Change the background color of the duplicated rows.
    • Select the found duplicates.
    • Identify each duplicate row in a special Status column.
    • Copy the found dupes to a new spreadsheet.
    • Move the duplicates to a new worksheet.

Click OK and enjoy the result!

Responses

Paul Walsh says:
May 9, 2022 at 3:55 pm

Does Ablebits excel dedupe work with Office.com excel online version?

Ekaterina Pechyonkina (Ablebits Team) says:
May 10, 2022 at 10:00 am

Hello Paul,

Thank you for your question. Sorry, we don't have an actual tool for Excel online.

BTW, you can have a look at Remove Duplicates for Google Sheets that has similar functionality and can be run in a browser. The add-on is installed and purchased directly through Google Sheets. You can test it out for 30 days for free to see if it suits your needs:
https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/remove_duplicates/347814268012

Jane Spice says:
October 13, 2020 at 9:36 am

Do you do a dedupe version for IMAC?
Thanks
Jane

Mary Trifuntova (Ablebits Team) says:
October 13, 2020 at 9:49 am

Hello Jane,

Our Ultimate Suite that contains all our Excel tools including Duplicate Remover is designed for Windows only and doesn't work on Mac.

However, you can have a look at Remove Duplicates for Google Sheets that has similar functionality and can be run in a browser on your Mac. The add-on is installed and purchased directly through Google Sheets, you can test it out for 30 days for free to see if it suits your needs.

Also, we released a brand-new Text Toolkit add-in that supports Excel on Mac. Although it won't dedupe your text, this set of tools will do a great job for text preparation and optimization. Feel free to install it right from the Microsoft Store.

Our online docs will help you quickly start using the tools. The entry point is here: https://www.ablebits.com/docs/excel-text-toolkit-intro/

Hope you'll find our add-ins helpful.

Naseeb says:
August 30, 2020 at 2:55 am

When comparing duplicates in two tables, I would like to highlights duplicates in both tables and not only in one table.

holyland umude says:
August 26, 2020 at 1:26 pm

please i need your help on how to use ablebits add in in excel to do duplicates counts. i.e the number of times a value or values occurs on a spreedsheet.

Mary Trifuntova (Ablebits Team) says:
August 26, 2020 at 2:08 pm

Hello Holyland,

Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, our add-ins won't help you count the duplicates in your spreadsheet. However, you may have a look at the following article on our blog:
COUNTIF in Excel - count if not blank, greater than, duplicate or unique
I believe you'll find the solution there. Otherwise, please ask your question in the Comments section under the corresponding topic and our tech specialist will do his best to help you out. Thank you.

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