Excel: How to Remove Duplicate Rows Based on Three Columns

Often you may want to remove duplicate rows based on three columns in Excel.

Fortunately this is easy to do using the Remove Duplicates function within the Data tab.

The following example shows how to use this function in practice.

Example: Remove Duplicates Based on Three Columns in Excel

Suppose we have the following dataset that shows the team name, position and points scored by various basketball players:

Notice that there are several duplicates across the three columns.

For example:

There are multiple players who have a team of A, a position of Forward, and points value of 25.
There are multiple players who have a team of B, a position of Guard, and points value of 17.

And so on.

To remove these rows that have duplicates across three columns, we need to highlight the cell range A1:C16 and then click the Data tab along the top ribbon and then click Remove Duplicates:

In the new window that appears, make sure the box is checked next to My data has headers and make sure the boxes next to Team, Position and Points are all checked:

Once you click OK, the rows with duplicate values across all three columns will automatically be removed:

Excel remove duplicate rows based on three columns

Excel tells us that 4 duplicate rows were found and removed and that 11 unique rows remain.

Notice that none of the remaining rows have duplicate values across all three columns.

For example:

There is only one row where Team is equal to A, Position is equal to Forward, and Points is equal to 25.
There is only one row where Team is equal to B, Position is equal to Guard, and Points is equal to 17.

And so on.