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I have a Google Sheets with a long list of names and amounts. Many of the names are duplicates. For example:

John  | 10
Bill  | 2
Susan | 3
Frank | 4
Sally | 10
John  | 2
Susan | 2
John  | 3

Is there any automated way to combine all of the values so I get a list without any duplicate names and a single sum of all of each person's entry?

For example:

John  | 15
Bill  | 2
Susan | 5
Sally | 10
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5 Answers 5

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Assuming names are in A1:A8, amounts in B1:B8, first we need unique name list in D1:

=UNIQUE(A1:A8)

Then use conditional sum in E1:

=SUMIF(A$1:A$8,D1,B$1:B$8)

Please note $ prefix before cell number. This will keep the same ranges when we copy cell contents down (select cells E1:E8 and press Ctrl+D).

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    Great! Just want to add that in some locales you need to replace comma with semi colon, i.e. =SUMIF(A$1:A$8;D1;B$1:B$8).
    – JLund
    Jan 17, 2015 at 12:26
  • Thanks for the answer. Upvoted. How do you sort it in descending order by the amount? In this example, John would come first, then Sally, Susan and finally Bill.
    – Kartick Vaddadi
    May 4, 2016 at 16:29
  • SImple :) =SORT(A2:B92;FALSE)
    – Zmogas
    May 6, 2016 at 9:00
  • 3
    not working for me
    – Gilbou
    Jul 7, 2016 at 15:17
31

If you use the Query Function then you don't have to worry about the list growing and not having copied the sum formula down far enough.

If names are in A:A and amounts are in B:B, then in D1 enter:

=QUERY(A:B, "select A, sum(B) group by A")

There is a much more thorough answer here, with screenshots even.

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    What if you had a header row? Would you have to know specific start and end row indices then? Aha, looks like I can specify the # of header rows...support.google.com/docs/answer/3093343?hl=en
    – qix
    Apr 12, 2016 at 7:18
  • This is the cleanest method, I think. Note that if you don't want to query the entire spreadsheet (for example, if you have unrelated data below), you can specify a range like A2:B28) Also, I like to use the CONCATENATE function to combine multiple columns from my spreadsheets into one row for grouping - like Lastname, Firstname.
    – Evan Donovan
    Aug 6, 2019 at 2:45
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I will give a shot at this as well: I prefer to use the filter function. Using column selection, allows for the table to automatically grow when adding "new" data:

FILTER(B:B;A:A=D2)

If you're having a header, you can change it accordingly:

FILTER($B$2:B;$A$2:A=D2)

Making the subseqent summation is easy:

SUM(FILTER($B$2:B;$A$2:A=D2))

See example: File I prepared with example

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  • How do I make this formula auto expand to the bottom of the sheet?
    – borisdiakur
    May 21, 2020 at 12:41
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Use the Pivot Table Report ... under the Data Menu.

You will need to make sure that the first row has field names.

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  • This is actually easier than the formula answers.
    – Dannid
    Aug 3, 2018 at 18:20
  • Yep, this is the correct answer. Forget formulas for such a grouping task.
    – giorgio79
    Jul 1, 2019 at 11:29
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Use following formula!

Header: =UNIQUE(A:A)

Value: =SUMIF(A:A,UNIQUE(A:A),B:B)

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