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Excel Advanced Filter Unique Records

You are here: Home / Excel / Excel Advanced Filter Unique Records
Excel Advanced Filter Unique Records
November 10, 2011 by Mynda Treacy

Do you ever want to extract a list of unique records from a massive list like the one in column A below which has over 900 records?

Excel Advanced Filter Unique Records

It would be tiresome to copy and paste the list and then delete the duplicate lines.

Of course we could use the Remove Duplicates tool on the Data tab of the ribbon, but we’re going to try something different today.

And that is to use Excel’s Advanced Filter to extract a list of unique records.

Excel Advanced Filter

It’s dead easy. Simply select the cells containing the list you want to filter >

  1. On the Data tab of the ribbon select Advanced Filter
  2.  

    Excel Advanced Filter

  3. Select ‘Copy to another location’, check your ‘List range’ is correct, enter the cell you want your list copied to, then check the ‘Unique records only’ check box.

Excel Advanced Filter

Voila. You now have a list of unique records.

Excel Advanced Filter Unique Records

Note: If you want to copy unique records to another sheet, be sure to select a cell on that sheet before going to the Data tab > Advanced Filter.

Alternatives to Excel Advanced Filter

If you have Office 365 you can use the new UNIQUE Function to extract a distinct or unique list.

Excel Advanced Filter Unique Records
Mynda Treacy

Microsoft MVP logo

AUTHOR Mynda Treacy Co-Founder / Owner at My Online Training Hub

CIMA qualified Accountant with over 25 years experience in roles such as Global IT Financial Controller for investment banking firms Barclays Capital and NatWest Markets.

Mynda has been awarded Microsoft MVP status every year since 2014 for her expertise and contributions to educating people about Microsoft Excel.

Mynda teaches several courses here at MOTH including Excel Expert, Excel Dashboards, Power BI, Power Query and Power Pivot.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jim

    January 20, 2015 at 9:31 pm

    I used to do horrible things like this
    or copy a list, sort it, set up formulae and filter to get the unique values

    then a colleague (God bless you, Dom) showed me the Remove Duplicates button (on the Data ribbon), it’s SO useful that I’ve added it to my QAT (and it’s Undo-able, so you can unique-ify a range in situ for a quick look-see)

    Reply
    • Mynda Treacy

      January 20, 2015 at 9:42 pm

      Another nice tip, Jim. Maybe you should write a book of tips 🙂

      Reply
  2. Rajesh

    April 20, 2013 at 5:29 pm

    Hello Friends

    It’s the best place where will you get best solution of your excel problems.

    I got and I’m satisfied with this.

    Best Regards,

    Reply
    • Mynda Treacy

      April 21, 2013 at 7:17 pm

      Cheers, Rajesh 🙂

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Excel Advanced Filters • My Online Training Hub says:
    September 12, 2014 at 8:15 am

    […] Advanced Filters allow you to extract your filtered data to another place in your worksheet/workbook or extract a unique list of records. […]

    Reply

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