How to Remove Duplicates from a List Online

Q: How do I remove duplicate lines from a list?

Paste your list into Text Fixer , enable Remove Duplicates in the options, and copy the output. The first occurrence of each item is kept; everything after that is removed.

Duplicate lines in a list are tedious to clean up by hand, especially when the list is long enough that you can't just scan it visually. Paste it here, check one box, and you're done.

Remove duplicates now. Free, nothing to install.

Remove Duplicate Lines → Open Text Fixer (More Options) →

How to do it

Paste your list into Text Fixer. One item per line. If your data is comma-separated, use the Split CSV button in the toolbar first to put each value on its own line. A column copied out of Excel or Google Sheets pastes in as one item per line already (or, to keep the data in the spreadsheet, see how to remove duplicates in Google Sheets).
Enable Remove Duplicates. It's in the options panel. The output updates instantly.
Check the output. The first occurrence of each item is kept. All later copies are gone.
Copy the result. Use the Copy button on the output panel.

What counts as a duplicate

Two lines are duplicates if they're identical after your other options are applied. A few things that affect this:

Case sensitivity: on by default. "Apple" and "apple" are treated as different items. Uncheck Case Sensitive in Options if you want them treated as the same.
Trailing spaces: Ignore Leading/Trailing Spaces is on by default, so "apple " and "apple" count as the same item.
Extra internal spaces: "John Smith" (two spaces) and "John Smith" (one space) are different unless you also enable Ignore Extra Spaces.

When the results still look wrong

If Remove Duplicates is on but you're still seeing what look like identical lines in the output, invisible characters are almost always the cause. Non-breaking spaces, zero-width spaces, and hidden carriage returns are invisible but make two lines compare as different.

Paste your list into the Invisible Character Detector to see exactly what's in each line. Then run it through the Data Cleaner to strip out the hidden characters before deduplicating.

Deduplicating and sorting at the same time

Text Fixer applies all active options together. Enable Remove Duplicates and Sort A-Z at the same time and the output will be deduplicated and sorted in one step. You don't need to run the tool twice.

Comparing two lists for duplicates?

If you want to find items that appear in both of two separate lists, that's the Compare tool.

Compare Two Lists →

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I remove duplicate lines from a list?

Paste your list into Text Fixer, enable Remove Duplicates in the options, and copy the output. The first occurrence of each item is kept; everything after that is removed.

Does removing duplicates preserve the original order?

Yes. The first time each item appears is kept. All later copies are dropped. The order of unique items stays the same as your original list.

What if 'Apple' and 'apple' should count as the same item?

Open Options and uncheck Case Sensitive. Both will be treated as identical, and only one will appear in the output.

Can I remove duplicates from a CSV list?

Yes. Use the Split CSV button in the toolbar first to convert comma-separated values to one item per line. Then enable Remove Duplicates. You can also rejoin them into CSV afterwards with the Join as CSV option.

Why are there still duplicates after removing them?

Almost always invisible characters. A line that ends with a non-breaking space looks identical to one that doesn't, but they compare as different. Paste your list into the Invisible Character Detector to find them. Then use the Data Cleaner to strip them out.

Can I see which items were duplicated, not just the clean list?

Text Fixer shows you the deduplicated result. If you want to know which specific values appeared more than once and how many times, that's a Duplicate Inspector (it's on the roadmap, not yet available).

Can I remove duplicates across two separate lists?

That's a different operation. If you want items that appear in only one of two lists, use the Compare Two Lists tool. A Only gives you items unique to List A. B Only gives you items unique to List B.

How do I remove duplicates and sort the result at the same time?

Enable both Remove Duplicates and Sort A-Z in Text Fixer's options. Both apply to the output at once.