How To Get A Unique List in Excel Instantly

Did you know in Excel, you can now instantly get a unique list of items from a larger data set with almost zero work?

This formula (available in Excel 2021, Microsoft 365 for PC/Mac, Excel Online) makes the magic work for you:

=UNIQUE(array,[by_col], [exactly_once])

See below:

Here's how it works:

1. Type =UNIQUE(
2. Select a group of cells that may have duplicates where you only want distinct items, press comma
3. the second parameter is whether you search by rows or by columns. Default is Rows, so False, but you can use True to use it by columns.
4. The third parameter is whether you want only things that appear one time (which would NOT include items that have multiple instances) or just grab one of each item which is False. The default is false and is what most people want (Distinct). Some people may only want to show items that are not duplicates (Unique) and they should put True in that parameter.