Find Duplicate Rows

The Find Duplicate Rows tool is a unified solution to find, highlight, and manage duplicate rows in your Google Sheets™ spreadsheet. It uses a find-first pattern where you first identify duplicate rows, review them in a results window, then apply actions.

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How to Use Find Duplicate Rows

1. Open the Find Duplicate Rows feature Navigate through the Google Workspace™ menu: Extensions > Text To Table Converter > Mega Tools > Find Duplicate Rows.

2. Select your range Choose where to search for duplicates:

   • Selection - Search only within your currently selected range
   • Current Sheet - Search the entire active sheet
   • All Sheets - Search across all sheets in your spreadsheet

3. Configure options (optional) Click the caret button to expand the options panel:

   • Find type: Select ‘duplicates’ (default) or ‘unique’ rows
   • Columns to check: Select specific columns to compare (default: all columns)
   • Data has headers: Checkbox to indicate if the first row contains headers (default: checked)
   • Keep occurrence: Choose to keep first occurrence (default) or last occurrence when deleting

4. Find duplicates Click the main “Find Duplicates” button to search for duplicate rows.

5. Review results The results window displays:

   • Count of duplicate rows found
   • Table showing: Checkbox | Row location (sheet!A5:Z5) | Type badge (“Duplicate Row”)
   • Results are clickable to navigate to the row (selects full row)
   • Collapsible results section with toggle button
   • Tooltips showing row content preview on hover

6. Select duplicate rows Use checkboxes to select specific duplicate rows you want to manage.

7. Apply actions to selected rows Choose an action to apply:

   Highlight - Highlights selected rows with color options:

   • Single color mode: All selected rows highlighted with one color (default: yellow)
   • Multi-color mode: Different duplicate groups highlighted with different colors, interpolated between min and max colors (default: red to green gradient)
   • Color pickers available for customization

   Delete - Deletes selected rows with options:

   • Keep first result row (checkbox)
   • Create backup (checkbox) - Creates a backup sheet before deletion

   Mark status - Adds a status column and marks selected rows as “Duplicate Row”

8. View result message After applying an action, a status message confirms what was done.

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Options and Defaults

• Find type: Duplicates (default) or Unique rows
• Columns to check: All columns (default) or specific column selection
• Data has headers: Checked by default
• Keep occurrence: First occurrence (default) or Last occurrence
• Highlight scheme:
  • Single color mode (default: yellow #FFEB3B)
  • Multi-color mode (default: red #f44336 → green #4caf50 gradient)

Tip

Results and your selection persist until you run a new search. Action buttons are disabled when no rows are selected.

Data Safety

When using the Delete action, consider enabling the “Create backup” option to preserve your original data. The backup sheet will be created automatically before deletion.

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Use Cases

• Data cleaning - Identify and remove duplicate entries from your dataset
• Quality control - Find duplicate records that shouldn’t exist
• Data analysis - Identify patterns in duplicate data
• Database preparation - Clean data before importing into databases
• Report generation - Ensure unique records in reports

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Note

This tool is part of the Mega Tools suite, available exclusively in Google Sheets™. Clicking a result row navigates to and selects the full row in your spreadsheet.