Removing duplicates in Google Sheets - Real Business Scenario

Scenario Mode

👤 Your Role: You are a sales assistant at a retail company.

📋 Request: Your manager wants a clean list of unique customer emails from recent orders to send a promotion.

📊 Data: You have a list of recent orders with customer names, emails, and purchase dates. Some customers appear multiple times because they ordered more than once.

🎯 Deliverable: Create a new list showing only unique customer emails without duplicates.

Sample Data

Order ID	Customer Name	Email	Purchase Date
1001	Alice Smith	[e-mail]	2024-05-01
1002	Bob Jones	[e-mail]	2024-05-02
1003	Alice Smith	[e-mail]	2024-05-03
1004	Carol Lee	[e-mail]	2024-05-04
1005	David Kim	[e-mail]	2024-05-05
1006	Bob Jones	[e-mail]	2024-05-06
1007	Eva Green	[e-mail]	2024-05-07
1008	Frank Hall	[e-mail]	2024-05-08

1

Step 1: Select a new empty cell where you want the unique email list to start, for example, cell F2.

Expected Result

Cell F2 is selected and ready for formula input.

2

Step 2: Enter the UNIQUE formula to extract unique emails from the Email column (column C).

=UNIQUE(C2:C9)

Expected Result

The formula lists unique emails: [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail].

3

Step 3: Press Enter to apply the formula and see the unique emails fill down starting from cell F2.

Expected Result

Cells F2 to F7 show the unique email addresses without duplicates.

4

Step 4: Optionally, add a header 'Unique Emails' in cell F1 for clarity.

Expected Result

Cell F1 displays the header 'Unique Emails' above the list.

Final Result

Unique Emails
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

✓The UNIQUE formula quickly removes duplicate emails.

✓This clean list can be used for sending promotions without repeats.

Bonus Challenge

Create a unique list of customer names and emails together, so each pair appears only once.

Show Hint

Use UNIQUE with an array range like UNIQUE(B2:C9) to get unique rows of names and emails.