Effortless Dynamic Dependent Dropdowns Trick in Google Sheets! No Scripting Required!

Check out this dependent dropdown hack I discovered in Google Sheets to be able to quickly and easily add multiple dependent dropdowns with NO scripting required.

To recap, here's what you need to do for the simple version in the Simple Version tab:
1) Create a normal drop-down in Column A from the first column in the simpleData tab.
2) Create a transposed filter function in the simpleDropdown helper tab that will return the data from Column B in the simpleData tab for each row in Column A (starting in A2, then hover over the blue box and click and drag down to copy the formula down).
3) Create the hacked drop-down in Column B from the first row in the simpleDropdown helper tab for the 2nd row in Column B on the Simple Version tab.
4) Update the data validation to delete the "$"s so the row reference is not locked.
5) Select B2, then click and drag on the blue box on the bottom right to copy the data validation down.

[yellothere]

It's crazy how well this video is made and how helpful this was for what I'm doing. I'm really hopeful about the layout of my next sheet/project after being able to implement this easily!

[LeandroSalerno]

the best tutorial of Dependent Dropdown! thanks!

[MariaRosalyn-jt]

OMG!!! I've been watching different tutorial for 2hrs now and you make my life super easy!!!! This is what I need! wooha!!

[videomonkpvr]

Much simpler than other video, great video. Wish you had more subs

[llenradleir]

Very Good! It really help me a lot! Thank you so much!

[lauragastanaga]

Hello, do you know how i can do this but the conditional dropdowns will copy over if i duplicate the sheet?

[国兵-dz]

Great Tutorial and it helped a lot. I have a request when i delete the data in column A, B column is not cleared automatically. Do you have a way to improve it? thanks.

[redrontu]

after
1000 rows is the formula will be carried?

[ericbandur]

How can we do this same setup but when they sort the rows, by date for example, the dropdowns still work and don't give the Invalid error notice?

[MorganGill-un]

Any idea why, for the first transposed filter function, I might be getting this reference error? "Error
Result was not automatically expanded, please insert more columns (101)."
This is my formula: =TRANSPOSE (FILTER(Settings!B:B, Settings!A:A=Naming!A2))
Hoping its a user error that I'm totally overlooking

[davidtopp]

Your video is great, and you explain every step very well! I am having a problem making this work. I am using a MacBook Air M2, running Sonoma and I am using the Safari Browser. I have used Google sheets for some time, even back when dependent data validation was a different setup, and I used indirect function. Currently, when I try to duplicate your exact steps, when I set the =filter, I get an error saying Filter has mismatched range sizes. Expected row count: 93. Column count: 1. Actual row count: 1 column count: 1

No matter how many rows each sheet has, I get similar errors. Any suggestions? Thank you in advance.

[danieljoetantobr]

Hey there,
On Limitations you say exactly my case: When I use sorting, it breaks evrything.
Can you point me the video you mentioned??
Thanks!

[alistairgene]

Great tutorial! Thank you very much! Big help!

[MenoMoxie]

Good video but why were you rushing through it? I know you have done this 100's of times, but the people watching your video haven't. Please slow down. Don't immediate switch screens when writing code. I barely saw that you added a bracket to the end of that first bit of code. 😳