How to use the Google Sheets Formula Generator
- 1. Pick a taskQUERY summary, whole-column formula, lookup, import, pattern check, split, filter and more.
- 2. Fill in the detailsColumn letters, ranges and values, or keep the example to try it.
- 3. Copy into SheetsPaste the formula into a cell; tips explain each part.
Why Sheets needs its own generator
Google Sheets shares most functions with Excel but adds powerful ones of its own. QUERY runs a SQL-like query over a range. ARRAYFORMULA fills a whole column from one cell. IMPORTRANGE pulls data from another spreadsheet, and REGEXMATCH, REGEXEXTRACT and REGEXREPLACE use regular expressions. SPLIT, COUNTUNIQUE, GOOGLETRANSLATE and GOOGLEFINANCE round it out. The generator writes these with the right quoting, including QUERY's single quotes for text.
The examples run on the same 10-order sample sheet as our Excel formula generator, with orders in rows 2–11.
Worked example
The default QUERY task summarises revenue by region for laptops, largest first: =QUERY(A1:G11, "select C, sum(F) where D = 'Laptop' group by C order by sum(F) desc label sum(F) 'Revenue'", 1). On the sample sheet that gives South 1,59,000, East 1,08,000, North 1,04,000 and West 55,000, under the headers Region and Revenue. The regex task for emails writes =REGEXMATCH(A2, "^[^@\s]+@[^@\s]+\.[A-Za-z]{2,}$"), which returns TRUE or FALSE.
Limits and tips
- Every output is checked for balanced brackets and quotes. QUERY, GOOGLETRANSLATE and GOOGLEFINANCE only run inside Google Sheets, so we couldn't execute them here.
- Pattern checks test format only; they don't prove an email or phone number exists.
- GOOGLEFINANCE rates can be delayed and aren't for official conversions.
- If your locale uses commas for decimals, Sheets wants semicolons between arguments.
Frequently asked questions
Do these work in Excel?
XLOOKUP, FILTER, SORT and SPLIT-like tasks have Excel equivalents; QUERY, IMPORTRANGE, REGEX functions (before 2024), COUNTUNIQUE and GOOGLETRANSLATE are Google Sheets only.
Why does IMPORTRANGE show #REF!?
The first time, click the cell and choose Allow access to connect the two spreadsheets.
Is the Google Sheets formula generator free?
Yes. You can open the Google Sheets formula generator and use it without signing up. When you generate a formula for the first time, we ask once for your name and WhatsApp number; after that it, and every other Uncodemy tool, opens straight away.