As many business organizations produce large amounts of data, ensuring data security becomes the priority. One such challenge faced by many data professionals is duplicated CSV files. The reasons for having duplicate files can vary. Sometimes it is due to data entry errors, system glitches, or any other reason. As a result, it consumes unnecessary storage space. Without any further delay, let’s look at the solutions through which we can remove unnecessary duplicate data from CSV files.
Native Method to Remove Duplicates from CSV Files
To remove duplicate entries from CSV file, users need to open the CSV file data in an Excel sheet. Follow below mentioned steps carefully.
- Go to the location where you have saved the CSV file and right-click on it.
- Hover over the Open With option and Choose MS Excel. Excel file displays the list of data from the CSV file.
- Select the desired column ( email address, Phone number, Last name, etc) to remove duplicates.
- After that, navigate to the Data in the Menu bar and select Sort in Ascending order “A-Z’.
- A pop-up appears ‘ Whether to expand the selection, click on Expand and Sort. All the data will be sorted in ascending order.
- Now, click on the Remove Duplicate option.
- After that, a Windows appears with two options, Expand Selection and Original Selection.
- Click on the Original Selection to find duplicates in the CSV file, then click OK.
- Finally, all the duplicate items will be removed from the selected column.
Using this method, users can manually remove duplicate entries from CSV files. However, users may face issues while performing this method.
Shortcomings of the Manual Method
Some of the most common drawbacks faced by users while using the manual approach are stated below.
- Users need to have a better understanding of Excel.
- If you have multiple CSV files, you have to repeat the steps for each file.
- This is a time taking process.
- There are high risk of losing original data.
So, How one can overcome these shortcomings? Many technical experts rely on third-party software to easily delete duplicates from CSV files in batch.
Professional Solution to Remove Duplicates from CSV File
There are multiple duplicate remover tools available online or in the market to remove duplicate data from CSV file. However, We would recommend you use the safe and reliable CSV Duplicate Remover to remove duplicate entries from CSV file. This tool facilitates removing duplicate data from multiple CSV files based on different fields. Users can also delete duplicates from vCard/ VCF files using this software.
Steps to Delete Duplicates in CSV File
- Install and Run the CSV File Duplicate Remover on your system.
- Click on the Remove Duplicate from CSV files option.
- Now, click on the Add File/Folders button and add the desired CSV files.
- After that, double click on the selected CSV files and see the list of all CSV data.
- Choose the desired criteria from the Remove Duplicate Records Based on the option to remove duplicates from the CSV file.
- Lastly, click on the Next button to start the process of eliminating duplicate files.
This method helps you to easily remove any duplicate entries from multiple CSV files in just a few clicks without losing the original data.
Conclusion
In this article, we have shown you the manual and the professional methods to remove duplicates from CSV files. Removing duplicates from the CSV file using the manual approach can be a bit challenging. Therefore, we have provided an alternative solution. Now, the choice is yours.
