Comments on: Excel 2007 - Duplicate Data Removal Issue

Question: Excel 2007 - Duplicate Data Removal Issue

Sandor Clegane — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:26:14 -0800

Excel 2007 - Is there a way to remove ONLY a duplicate row leaving the first unique entry?

I have a list of sweepstakes entries that need to be pared down to only unique entries. When I attempt to remove duplicate data it usually removes both the duplicates AND the first entry. I need to find a simple way (without formulas, if possible) to separate the duplicates from the unique entries.

The data columns are as follows: Entry Date, First Name, Last Name, Email, Birthdate, Address, City, State, Zip, Sex, Phone Number, Opt In 1, Opt In 2.

I need to remove all duplicate email addresses from the list. There are a few issues with the way I currently do things. If I just highlight the email column and remove duplicate data it shifts all the unique addresses up so now the data is out of alignment. If I select the entire spreadsheet and remove duplicates it doesn't come up with the same number of duplicate entries as I get with just the email column. Finally, if I apply conditional formatting to the duplicate entries it highlights all versions of the same email address. Thus, I would be removing all entires for that person. I need to allow them one and remove the rest.

I realize there are ways to do this with formulas but I have to do this often and applying a formula to tens of thousands of rows is very, very cumbersome.

Oh Hive Mind, please help me!

By: owhydididoit

owhydididoit — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:31:54 -0800

Try this article.

By: jontyjago

jontyjago — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:24:06 -0800

Or how about selecting the text, Data / Advanced Filter and selecting Only Unique Records?

By: jontyjago

jontyjago — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:25:43 -0800

Sorry, that should be Data / Filter / Advanced Filter...

I usually put it in new cells as well, but it's probably not necessary.

By: TuxHeDoh

TuxHeDoh — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:29:28 -0800

Just recently I used Duplicate Master, with great success, when the above filter method wasn't doing what I needed.

By: Sandor Clegane

Sandor Clegane — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:42:51 -0800

TuxHeDoh -

That works great! It not only marks duplicates but distinguishes between the first entry and all subsequent entries. Thanks!