How to remove duplicates and replace with blank cells in Excel?

Normally when you apply Remove Duplicates command in Excel, it removes the entire duplicate rows. But sometimes, you want the blank cells to replace the duplicate values, in this situation, the Remove Duplicate command will not work. This article is going to guide you remove duplicates and replace with blank cells in Excel.

Remove duplicates and replace with blank cells with Excel function

Remove duplicates and replace with blank cells with Kutools for Excel

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arrow blue right bubble Remove duplicates and replace with blank cells with Excel function

If there are some duplicate data in a range, the following two formulas will guide you to remove all duplicates and leave blank cells in the range. Please do as follows:

1. In the adjacent blank cell, in the case, in cell D2, enter the formula =IF(A2="","",IF(COUNTIF($A2:A15,A2)=1,A2,"")). See screenshot:

doc-replace-duplicates-with-blank1

2. Press Enter key, and click cell D2, and then drag the fill handle across to the range that you want to contain this formula. And the remaining values will keep the last item of the duplicates, others have been removed and leave blank cells. See screenshots:

doc-replace-duplicates-with-blank2 -2 doc-replace-duplicates-with-blank3

3. As they are formulas, when you want to copy them, please paste as values.

Tip: If you need to replace all the duplicate values with blank cells and only keep the unique values, the following formula can help you: =IF(A2="", "", IF(COUNTIF(A$2:A$15,A2)>1,"",A2)), and then you will get the following results:

doc-replace-duplicates-with-blank2 -2 doc-replace-duplicates-with-blank4

Note: You can replace cell references in above two formulas according to your case.

arrow blue right bubble Remove duplicates and replace with blank cells with Kutools for Excel

The Select Duplicate & Unique Cells utility of Kutools for Excel can help you quickly select the duplicate values in a range. On the other hand, with this utility, you can also compare two ranges, and select all duplicates in one range at once.

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1. Select the range that you want to apply this utility.

2. Click Kutools > Select Tools > Select Duplicate & Unique Cells, see screenshot:

doc-replace-duplicates-with-blank5

3. In the Select Duplicate & Unique Cells dialog box, select Duplicates (Except 1 st one) or All duplicates (Including 1 st one) as you need. See screenshot:

doc-replace-duplicates-with-blank6

4. Then click OK, if you select Duplicates (Except 1 st one) option, the duplicate values have been selected which not contain the values appear for the first time. And then press the Delete key to remove them. See screenshots:

doc-replace-duplicates-with-blank7 -2 doc-replace-duplicates-with-blank8 -2 doc-replace-duplicates-with-blank9

5. If you select All duplicates (Including 1 st one) option, all the duplicate values which contain the values appear for the first time, and only leave the unique values. And then press the Delete key to remove them. See screenshots:

doc-replace-duplicates-with-blank7 -2 doc-replace-duplicates-with-blank10 -2 doc-replace-duplicates-with-blank11

Note: Select entire rows: With this option, the entire rows which contain the same values will be selected.

If you want to know more detail information about this function, please visit Select Duplicate & Unique Cells.

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  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    AK · 4 months ago
    =IF(A2="","",IF(COUNTIF($A2:A15,A2)=1,A2,""))

    This doesnt seem to work on Large texts cells. throws #VALUE! Errror


    Any solution for that?

  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Navyasree Janjirala · 2 years ago
    Is there anyway where we could keep the duplicated cell and replace value with a zero??

    Say: There are 2 rows in our worksheet with 2 columns "name", "value". It should not remove the name instead replace the value with 0.

    Excel 10 ------ Excel 10
    Excel 10 ------ Excel 0
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Jo · 2 years ago
    formula returned blank cells
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Laxmiprasad · 2 years ago
    This small formula also works : =IF(COUNTIF($A$2:A2,A2)=1,A2,"").. Just drag it
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Sayan · 3 years ago
    thankx a ton...saved a lot of tym...
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    SACHIN · 3 years ago
    You have shown formula with very clarity, Thereby I got help with easily. If you have any link in which that I can get & search mostly formula by there link.
    :-)
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Murali · 3 years ago
    Hi,

    Is there any formula to remove duplicates and replace it with another values in the same sheet
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Dib · 4 years ago
    Hi really need help, i having the same problem however i need the first data and clear out any succeeding duplicates. Like if i have 5 "jane" in a range, i would need 1 "jane"(the very first in line) and delete the rest. I see with the given solution that it actually delete all 5 "jane"s.
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    Nat · 5 years ago
    You're a genius!!!! Just saved me half a day :)
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Satyam · 5 years ago
    Use the following VBA code

    Sub RemoveDupes()
    Dim X As Long
    For X = 1 To Range("A" & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Row
    If Application.WorksheetFunction.CountIf(Range("A1:A" & X), Range("A" & X).Text) > 1 Then Rows(X).ClearContents
    Next
    End Sub

    It works for me.

    Thanks to Blade Hunter [url]http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/excel-questions/768398-how-remove-duplicates-replace-blank-cells-excel.html#post3766476[/url]
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Petter · 5 years ago
    Please note that on office for mac semicolon is used to separate variables in function calls, which gives you
    =IF(A2="";"";IF(COUNTIF($A2:A999;A2)=1;A2;""))
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    GT · 6 years ago
    how to retain the duplicated value on top? because it always stay at the bottom
    • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
      BenL · 5 years ago
      I was having the same issue and used the following formula to display the first duplicated value but no others:

      =IF(A2="","",IF(COUNTIF($A$2:$A$286,A2)=(COUNTIF(A2:A286,A2)),A2,""))

      I had 286 rows of data in the sheet I was working with. Hope this helps!
      • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
        ZOHRA · 3 years ago
        Thanks it helped me a lot. what i wanted to find out your formula exactly got me that output. Thanks a lot again.
      • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
        Oliver · 4 years ago
        Fantastic hint. That was exactly what I was looking for. You made my day!
      • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
        Jac · 4 years ago
        Thanks for sharing this! It saved me hours!