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The FILTER function with OR can be used to extract multiple criteria from a range of data. It allows you to filter out all the data that does not match one or more criteria that you specify. The syntax of the FILTER function is FILTER(range, criteria1, [criteria2], …). The criteria for the OR statement is written in the form of “criteria1=criterion1 OR criteria2=criterion2”, where each criteria is the field or column you wish to filter and each criterion is the value that the field or column must have in order to be included in the filtered result.
You can use the following basic syntax in Google Sheets to use the FILTER function with OR logic:
=FILTER(A1:C10, (A1:A10="A")+(C1:C10<20))
This filter returns the rows in the range A1:C10 where the value in column A is equal to “A” or the value in column C is less than 20.
Note: The plus (+) sign is used as an OR operator in Google Sheets.
The following example shows how to use this syntax in practice.
Example: How to Use Filter Function with OR in Google Sheets
Suppose we have the following dataset in Google Sheets that contains information about various basketball players:
We can use the following formula to filter for all rows where the team is equal to “A” or the points is less than 20:
=FILTER(A1:C10, (A1:A10="A")+(C1:C10<20))
The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:
The only rows returned are the ones where the team is equal to “A” or the points is less than 20.
We can also use more plus signs (+) in the FILTER function to apply even more OR operators.
For example, we can use the following syntax to filter for rows where the team is equal to “A” or the position is “Guard” or points is greater than 15:
=FILTER(A1:C10, (A1:A10="A")+(B1:B10="Guard")+(C1:C10>15))
The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:
This FILTER function returns the rows in the original dataset where any of the three conditions are met.
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in Google Sheets: