How to Highlight Unique Values in Excel

Normally when we have dirty data, we tend to get a lot of duplicates. If you want to spot the ones with unique values and highlight them, it is very easy to do in Excel for your data cleanup!

Here is our sample list of words, there are some duplicates and we only want to highlight the unique ones:

I explain how you can do this below:

Download excel workbookHow-to-Highlight-Unique-Values.xlsx

STEP 1: Select your list of words / data:

STEP 2: Go to Home > Conditional Formatting > Highlight Cells Rules > Duplicate Values

STEP 3: Make sure to select Unique so that the unique values will only be highlighted. You can select the formatting that you want. For our example, we selected Green Fill with Dark Green Text. 

Click OK.

Excel is smart enough to highlight all of the unique values for you!

How to Highlight Unique Values in Excel

Bryan

Bryan Hong is an IT Software Developer for more than 10 years and has the following certifications: Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD): Web Developer, Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): Windows Applications, Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) and Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA).

He is also an Amazon #1 bestselling author of 4 Microsoft Excel books and a teacher of Microsoft Excel & Office at the MyExecelOnline Academy Online Course.