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How to highlight duplicate rows across multiple columns in Excel?

Author Sun Last modified

For instance, if there is a range of values, how can you quickly highlight the duplicate rows across these multiple columns as below screenshot shown? In this article, I introduce some tricks on solving this job in Excel.

A screenshot showing a dataset where duplicate rows across multiple columns will be highlighted

Highlight duplicate rows across columns by Conditional Formatting

Highlight duplicate rows across columns by Kutools for Excel good idea3

Highlight duplicate rows across columns by Conditional Formatting

You can highlight duplicate rows across columns by applying a formula in Conditional Formatting function.

1. Select the data range, click Home > Conditional Formatting > New Rule. And in the popping New Formatting Rule dialog, select Use a formula to determine which cells to format, and paste this formula =COUNTIFS($A$2:$A$10,$A2,$B$2:$B$10,$B2,$C$2:$C$10,$C2)>1 into the Format values where this formula is true box. See screenshot:
A screenshot of the New Formatting Rule dialog

2. Click Format in the New Formatting Rule dialog to open the Format Cells dialog. In the dialog, click Fill tab, and select one background color that you want to highlight the duplicate rows with. See screenshot:
A screenshot showing the Format Cells dialog to apply a fill color for duplicates

3. Click OK > OK to close dialogs, and now the duplicate rows across multiple columns have been highlighted with the specified filled color. See screenshot:
A screenshot showing duplicate rows highlighted across columns

Note: in the formula, A2:A10, B2:B10 and C2:C10 are the column ranges you work, you can change them as you need.

Highlight duplicate rows across columns by Kutools for Excel

If there are dozens of columns you want to work with, the Conditional Formatting would not be a good choice to solve this job. However, you can apply Kutools for Excel’s Select Duplicate & Unique Cells utility to quickly highlight the rows across dozens of columns.

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After installing Kutools for Excel, please do as below: (Free Download Kutools for Excel Now!)

1. Select the data range, click Kutools > Select > Select Duplicate & Unique Cells. See screenshot:
A screenshot showing the Select Duplicate & Unique Cells option on the Kutools tab on the ribbon

2. In the Select Duplicate & Unique Cells dialog, check Duplicates (Except 1st one) or All duplicates (Including 1st one) options as you need, and go to Processing of results section to specify the highlighting color and font color. Click Ok, and a dialog pops out to remind you the number of selected duplicate rows. See screenshot:
A screenshot showing Kutools options for selecting duplicate rows in Excel

3. Click OK, now the duplicate rows have been highlighted. See screenshot:
A screenshot showing duplicate rows highlighted across multiple columns using Kutools

Demo: Quickly Find Duplicate Or Unique Cells/Rows In A Range In Excel

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