How to trace precedents in Google Sheets

Why use Select Special in Google Sheets

When working with complex spreadsheets, it’s important to understand which cells all formulas depend on. This helps you troubleshoot errors and understand the flow of data through your sheet.

Select Special for Google Sheets helps you quickly find and select precedents — cells whose values are used in formulas.

What are precedents

Precedents are cells that your formulas depend on, those that you reference in formulas. For example, if cell C3 contains the formula =A1 + B2, then A1 and B2 are precedents of C3 because the formula in C3 uses values from A1 and B2.

Tip

Precedents are the opposite of dependents.

Dependents are cells where the formula is written — the ones that calculate something from other cells. For example, if cell C3 contains the formula =A1 + B2, then C3 is a dependent of A1 and B2. See How to trace dependents in Google Sheets.

Why trace precedents

Tracing precedents in Google Sheets helps you understand where a formula gets its data from. This is useful when you want to:

• Trace relationships between cells.
• Debug formula errors by finding the source of values.

How to trace precedents with Select Special

Tip

If you haven’t installed the Select Special add-on yet, follow this installation guide.

1. Select the cell with a formula

Click the cell that contains the formula whose precedents you want to find.

2. Choose the level of precedents

Decide how many levels of precedents to select:

• First level: Select only cells directly used in the formula.
• All levels: Select all precedent cells, even if they are not used directly. For example, if your formula uses B2, and B2 itself is calculated from A1, both B2 and A1 will be selected.

3. Select precedents

Click Select at the bottom of the add-on. It will select all dependent cells based on the chosen scope.