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Excel is an incredibly powerful tool that can be used to analyze and manage data in a variety of ways. One of the most important and useful functions of Excel is the ability to remove duplicate rows based on three columns. This powerful tool allows users to quickly identify and delete duplicate entries and ensures that the data set is clean and accurate. Removing duplicates based on three columns can help users save time, reduce data errors, and make their data easier to analyze. This guide will provide an overview of how to remove duplicate rows based on three columns in Excel.
Often you may want to remove duplicate rows based on three columns in Excel.
Fortunately this is easy to do using the Remove Duplicates function within the Data tab.
The following example shows how to use this function in practice.
Example: Remove Duplicates Based on Three Columns in Excel
Suppose we have the following dataset that shows the team name, position and points scored by various basketball players:
Notice that there are several duplicates across the three columns.
For example:
- There are multiple players who have a team of A, a position of Forward, and points value of 25.
- There are multiple players who have a team of B, a position of Guard, and points value of 17.
And so on.
To remove these rows that have duplicates across three columns, we need to highlight the cell range A1:C16 and then click the Data tab along the top ribbon and then click Remove Duplicates:
In the new window that appears, make sure the box is checked next to My data has headers and make sure the boxes next to Team, Position and Points are all checked:
Once you click OK, the rows with duplicate values across all three columns will automatically be removed:
Excel tells us that 4 duplicate rows were found and removed and that 11 unique rows remain.
For example:
- There is only one row where Team is equal to A, Position is equal to Forward, and Points is equal to 25.
- There is only one row where Team is equal to B, Position is equal to Guard, and Points is equal to 17.
And so on.