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How to look up and concatenate all matches in Excel and Google Sheets
Topic:Lookups (any direction)Heads up: Excel and Google Sheets do this differently.
Excel
=TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,IF($A$2:$A$5="Alice",$B$2:$B$5,""))Google Sheets
=TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,FILTER($B$2:$B$5,$A$2:$A$5="Alice"))Try it with your data
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Step by step
- 1In Excel, enter =TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,IF(criteria_range=lookup_value,return_range,"")) and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to confirm as an array formula (or just Enter in Excel 365).
- 2In Google Sheets, use FILTER instead of IF: =TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,FILTER(return_range,criteria_range=lookup_value)) — FILTER is native and simpler.
- 3The TRUE second argument in TEXTJOIN tells it to ignore blank values produced when the IF/FILTER condition is FALSE.
Tips
- In Excel 365 TEXTJOIN with IF works without Ctrl+Shift+Enter because dynamic array formulas are supported natively. In Excel 2019 and earlier, always array-confirm with Ctrl+Shift+Enter.
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Frequently asked
Can I sort the concatenated results alphabetically?
In Google Sheets wrap the FILTER in SORT: =TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,SORT(FILTER(B2:B100,A2:A100=lookup_value))). In Excel 365 use =TEXTJOIN(", ",TRUE,SORT(FILTER(B2:B100,A2:A100=lookup_value))).
More on Lookups (any direction)
See all →Reference
HLOOKUP
Look up a value in the top row of a table and return a value from a row below it — the horizontal cousin of VLOOKUP.
How-toHow to look up the last matching value
Use LOOKUP with a search trick or XLOOKUP with search mode -1 to find the last occurrence of a value in a list.
How-toHow to do a lookup with wildcards
Use VLOOKUP or MATCH with wildcard characters (* and ?) to perform partial-match lookups on text values.
How-toHow to do a case-sensitive lookup
Use INDEX with MATCH and the EXACT function to perform a lookup that distinguishes between uppercase and lowercase text.
How-toHow to look up a value and sum the matches
Use SUMIF or SUMIFS to sum all values that match a lookup criterion, returning the total of all matching rows rather than a single result.
How-toHow to find the closest matching value
Use INDEX and MATCH with ABS and MIN to find the value in a list that is numerically closest to a target number.