Remove a List of Persons from a Larger List

**criticalslinky** · 09-06-2012, 12:40 PM

Hello all,

I have a large list of customers, first and last names. I have another list of customer who need to be removed from the first list. Everyone on the second list is on the first list, but I can't figure out a good way to remove them from the main list of people.

Any ideas? I looked into using VLOOKUP, is that the right direction?

**Spencer101** · 09-06-2012, 12:45 PM

Personally I'd use COUNTIF to check which of the first list are also on the second list then filter the data to anything that isn't zero and delete those rows.

**criticalslinky** · 09-06-2012, 02:50 PM

Originally Posted by Spencer101

Personally I'd use COUNTIF to check which of the first list are also on the second list then filter the data to anything that isn't zero and delete those rows.

That sounds like exactly what I want! I'm a sorry excuse of an excel user, so I've never used COUNTIF. From what I see, it only identifies weather or not a thing exists in a range, not where/what it is. Would you mind explaining your idea a little further? I really appreciate your help.

**Spencer101** · 09-06-2012, 02:58 PM

Have a look at the attached.

Sheet 1 is your "main list"
Sheet 2 is your list to check against.

Column A on Sheet 1 holds the main list of names
Column A on Sheet 2 holds the list of names to be checked against.
Column B on Sheet 1 holds the results of the COUNTIF

So the COUNTIF formula compares the value in column A against the whole list on Sheet 2. If it finds any instances it will show how many. If it doesn't it will show zero.

So all you have to do is apply the auto filter on column B of Sheet 1 to show anything other than zero and delete those rows.

On your workbook you will obviously have to alter the ranges to fit your dataset.

Let me know if you need anything more on this