title: How To Detect Which Cells Are Merged In Google Sheets
body: <p>While trying to remove duplicate phone numbers from a relatively large list I recently combined, Google Sheets presented me with this error message:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p><strong>There was a problem.</strong>
    Your selection contains a merged cell. To remove duplicates, all cells must contain the same number of rows and columns.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>The formula I used to test and try to expose merged cells within Google sheets was:</p>
  
  <pre><code>=if(columns(A2:F2) = 6, "True", "False")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But this always returned <code>true</code> Because even though the cells may be merged they are still considered individual cells. </p>
  
  <p>I am wondering if there is an easy way to discover and sort out these cells in Google Sheets. <a href="https://support.office.com/en-us/article/find-merged-cells-d02b2a5a-a08d-4641-8d4d-b3f233daca2c" rel="noreferrer">Excel used to have a very simple way of doing it</a> but has since removed the functionality.</p>
  
  <p>Any ideas?</p>