Compare Two Lists
Paste two lists and see what's only in A, only in B and in both. Nothing leaves your browser.
These lists are large, so press Compare to see the result.
Working
Comparing two tables, not just one column?
Table Compare does this inside Excel: pick two tables, match their rows by ID and see the changed cells highlighted in your own sheets. Works on Windows, Mac and the web.
See Table CompareTwo whole files instead? Compare two Excel files for free.
- Free, no sign-up
- Nothing leaves your browser
- Up to 1 million items
- Copy back to Excel
How it works
Two lists in, three clear answers out.
Paste or import both lists
Paste one item per line, copy a column straight from Excel, or import a .txt, .csv or .xlsx file and pick the column.
Choose how items are matched
Upper and lower case and extra spaces are ignored by default. Open Options to match 00123 with 123, or to split items by comma, semicolon, tab or space.
Copy or download each result
See what is only in A, only in B and in both, plus the duplicates. Copy a result back into Excel, or download .txt, .csv or one .xlsx with a sheet for each.
What people compare
Any two columns of things that should line up, and often do not.
Email lists and unsubscribes
Find who is still subscribed after an unsubscribe export, or which sign-ups are missing from your mailing tool.
Example: subscribers in A, unsubscribes in B. Only in A is who still gets your emails.
SKUs in two systems
Check that the shop and the warehouse know the same products, and see which codes exist on one side only.
Example: turn on Treat 00123 and 123 as the same when one export dropped the leading zeros.
Invited and registered attendees
See who was invited but did not register, and who registered without an invitation.
Example: invited in A, registered in B. Only in A are the people to remind.
Old and new customer lists
Compare last month's customers with this month's to see who is new and who left.
Example: last month in A, this month in B. Only in B are the new customers.
Two columns in Excel
Copy column A and column B from your sheet, paste each into a box and copy any result back into Excel.
Example: no formulas, no helper column and no conditional formatting to set up.
Followers and following
Compare the accounts you follow with the accounts that follow you, or any two lists of usernames or domains.
Example: following in A, followers in B. Only in A is who does not follow back.
Compare two columns in Excel
Prefer formulas? These three do the same job in your own sheet. Change the ranges to match your data.
COUNTIF
Put this in C2, next to list A, and fill it down. It says whether each item of A is also in list B. COUNTIF ignores upper and lower case, like this tool, but treats * and ? in an item as wildcards.
=IF(COUNTIF($B$2:$B$1000,A2)>0,"In both","Only in A")
XLOOKUP or MATCH
XLOOKUP returns the match, or the words you choose when there is none. It needs Excel 2021 or Microsoft 365. MATCH does the same in every version.
=XLOOKUP(A2,$B$2:$B$1000,$B$2:$B$1000,"Only in A")
=IF(ISNA(MATCH(A2,$B$2:$B$1000,0)),"Only in A","In both")
Highlight with conditional formatting
Select A2:A1000, then choose Home, Conditional Formatting, New Rule, Use a formula to determine which cells to format, and enter one of these. The first colors items that are also in B, the second colors repeats inside list A.
=COUNTIF($B$2:$B$1000,A2)>0
=COUNTIF($A$2:$A$1000,A2)>1
Need whole tables matched by ID? Formulas compare one column at a time. Table Compare matches the rows of two tables by their ID and highlights every changed cell in your workbook.
See Table CompareFrequently asked questions
No. Both lists are compared inside your browser, on your own computer. Nothing is sent to a server and nothing is stored, and closing the tab clears everything. The page itself loads like any other web page, but what you paste or import never leaves it. An imported .xlsx file is read by a background process of your own browser, also on your computer.
No. By default Apple and apple count as the same item, and extra spaces at the start, at the end or between words are ignored too. Open Options and untick Ignore upper and lower case or Ignore extra spaces when you need an exact match. The results show each item as it is written in the first list it appears in, with the extra spaces tidied.
By default every item is shown once in the results, however often it repeats. An item is in both lists when at least one copy is in each. When an item repeats inside a list, a Duplicates tab appears with how many times it occurs in List A and in List B. Untick Remove duplicates from results to keep every copy in Only in A, Only in B and In both.
Not at once. Compare List A with List B, then paste the In both result into List A and compare it with List C: what remains in both is in all three lists. Use Only in A the same way to find items that are in A but in neither of the others. Repeat for as many lists as you have.
Up to 1 million items per list on a computer with enough memory. Up to 50,000 items per list the result updates as you type. Above that, press Compare. Lists larger than about 200,000 items are compared in a background process so the page stays usable, and a million items take a few seconds. Results longer than a worksheet (1,048,575 items) are cut in the .xlsx download, and the Summary sheet says so.
Put =IF(COUNTIF($B$2:$B$1000,A2)>0,"In both","Only in A") next to the first column and fill it down. XLOOKUP, MATCH and a conditional formatting rule that colors the matches are in the Excel section above. Or copy both columns, paste one into each box here and copy the result back. For whole tables matched by an ID column, use Table Compare, my Excel add-in.
Compare Tables Inside Excel
Table Compare finds the changed, new and missing rows between two tables in your workbook and highlights them in your own sheets.
See Table CompareExcel on Windows, Mac and the web.
Microsoft and Excel are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation, which is not affiliated with this tool.
Open-source notices
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