Removing duplicates in Google Sheets - Cell-by-Cell Formula Trace

Sample Data

A list of names with some duplicates in column A.

Cell	Value
A1	Name
A2	Alice
A3	Bob
A4	Alice
A5	Charlie
A6	Bob
A7	David

Formula Trace

=UNIQUE(A2:A7)

Step 1: A2:A7

Step 2: UNIQUE(["Alice", "Bob", "Alice", "Charlie", "Bob", "David"])

Cell Reference Map

    A   
1 |Name |
2 |Alice|
3 |Bob  |
4 |Alice|
5 |Charlie|
6 |Bob  |
7 |David|  

Formula references cells A2 to A7 for input data.

The formula uses the range A2:A7 which contains the names with duplicates.

Result

    B           
1 |Unique Names|
2 |Alice       |
3 |Bob         |
4 |Charlie     |
5 |David       |

The UNIQUE formula outputs the list of names without duplicates starting from cell B2.

Sheet Trace Quiz - 3 Questions

What does the UNIQUE function do with the list of names?

A Counts how many times each name appears

B Sorts the names alphabetically

C Removes duplicate names, keeping only the first occurrence

D Reverses the order of names

Key Result

UNIQUE(range) returns a list of unique values from the given range, removing duplicates.