Getting Started with SheetDiff

Last updated: July 20, 2026

SheetDiff installation is complete. Follow the steps below to start comparing sheets and removing duplicates right away.

Quick Start

1 Open Google Sheets™

Open a Google Sheet™ that contains two sheets (or ranges) you want to compare. You can also open an existing sheet with data to deduplicate.

2 Launch SheetDiff

In the menu bar, click Extensions > SheetDiff > Run Diff. A sidebar will open on the right side of your sheet.

3 Sidebar overview

The sidebar has two tabs:

• Compare — Compare two sheets and highlight differences
• Remove Duplicates — Remove matching rows from a target sheet

Compare Tab

1 Select sheets

Choose Sheet A (the original/reference) and Sheet B (the updated/target) from the dropdown menus.

2 Choose comparison mode

Select one of the following modes:

• Rows — Compare entire rows. Rows present in A but not B are shown as deletions; rows in B but not A are shown as additions.
• Cells — Compare individual cell values. Differences are highlighted cell by cell.
• Columns — Compare specific columns side by side.

3 Set key column (optional)

For row-level comparison, you can specify a key column — a column whose values uniquely identify each row (e.g., ID, email address). This helps SheetDiff match corresponding rows between the two sheets even if they appear in a different order.

4 Configure options

Available options include:

• Header row — Treat the first row as column headers (skipped during comparison)
• Case-sensitive — Whether to treat "ABC" and "abc" as different
• Ignore whitespace — Trim and normalize whitespace before comparing

5 Run Comparison

Click Run Comparison. SheetDiff will process the data and highlight differences directly on your sheet with color-coded cells:

• Green — Added rows / new data (present in B but not in A)
• Red — Deleted rows / removed data (present in A but not in B)
• Yellow — Changed cells (value differs between A and B)

Remove Duplicates Tab

1 Select source (A) and target (B)

Choose Sheet A (the source / reference sheet) and Sheet B (the target sheet where duplicates will be removed). Rows in B that match rows in A will be deleted.

2 Set key column

Choose the column used to identify matching rows. Only rows where the key column value matches a value in the source sheet will be removed.

3 Configure options

• Header row — Skip the first row
• Leave one copy — Keep one occurrence of each duplicate in B instead of removing all matches
• Match entire row — Require all columns to match, not just the key column

4 Run Remove Duplicates

Click Remove Duplicates. Matching rows are deleted from sheet B. A summary message shows how many rows were removed.

Restoring Original Colors

After a comparison run, you can reset all cells back to their original fill colors using Extensions > SheetDiff > Restore Original Colors. This clears the green/red/yellow highlights without affecting your data.

Next Steps

• Read the User Manual for detailed feature descriptions and advanced usage
• Visit the Support page if you run into issues or have questions
• Review the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service

Support

Questions or feedback? Contact us at jinxiao777+sheetdiff@gmail.com.