This post is about the People (Smart) Chip, the recent update to Google Sheets.
We will discuss two points: how to insert People Chips and how to convert them back to email addresses.
For the conversion, we can adopt two methods: one uses a formula, and the other uses a menu command.
Google introduced the People Chip in Sheets at the end of 2021. However, I didn’t post about this feature for one reason.
There was no option to revert People Chips to their email addresses without affecting other changes to the Sheets. It was like getting a feature to format a range of cells but having no option to clear that formatting.
Now, things have changed. We can convert People Chips back to their email addresses.
Purpose of People Chips in Google Sheets
People Chips are email IDs (texts) formatted differently to hold more information about the contact. The background of the converted email IDs, not the cell color, will be highlighted (greyed out) to differentiate them from non-converted ones.
I don’t know why Google has named it so, perhaps due to the chip-shaped formatting.
These Chips help you view more information about your email contacts in cells, such as your recent interaction with them, calendar events, or a quick way to communicate with them.
You will find more underlying information when you hover over or click on a People Chip in a cell.
Below, you can learn how to insert or convert the People Chips back to email addresses in Google Sheets.
How to Insert People (Smart) Chips in Google Sheets
You can insert People Chips in two ways in Google Sheets: one with the email IDs within your Contacts and the other without.
Option 1:
- Click on a blank cell and type the
@symbol, or select Insert > Smart Chips > People, followed by the starting character of the email address. - Select a contact from the drop-down list under People or Groups.
Option 2:
- Type the required email address in a cell.
- Select Insert > Smart Chips > Convert to People Chip.
If you encounter an error, such as “Cell contains an invalid email,” follow these steps:
- Open Google Contacts (a free contact management tool from Google).
- Click Create Contact and add the name, email address, and other details for the contact you want to use in Sheets.
- Save the changes.
- Re-type the email address in the cell and insert the People Chip as mentioned above.
Note: If a contact only has an email address and no name associated with it, the People Chip will display the email address.
Finally, let’s learn how to convert People Chips back to email addresses in Google Sheets.
How to Convert People Chips Back to Email Addresses in Google Sheets
Earlier, there was no option to retrieve email addresses from People Chips in Google Sheets. The only workaround was to manually copy the email addresses one by one from each chip.
Now, Google has introduced new menu and formula options to revert People Chips to email addresses.
Using Menu Command:
To Format People Chips Back to Email Addresses:
- Select the cell or cell range that contains the People Chips.
- Right-click to open the context menu.
- Select Smart Chips > Remove Smart Chip.
To Extract Email Addresses from People Chips in a New Range:
- Select the cell or cell range that contains the People Chips.
- Right-click to open the context menu.
- Select Data Extraction.
- In the sidebar panel that opens, under Data to Extract, select Email, Name, or both.
- Under Extract to, enter a cell reference where you want the selected values extracted from the People Chip and click Extract.
If you enter C2 and extract from B2:B6, the extracted values will be placed in C2:C6 (email IDs) or C2:D6 (email IDs and names).
Using a Formula:
To extract an email address from a People Chip, enter = followed by the cell reference and .email. For example, to extract the email address from the People Chip in cell B2, you can use =B2.email.
To extract the name from the People Chip, use .name instead of .email.
In the above example, you can enter =B2.email in cell C2 and drag the fill handle from C2 down to C6 to extract email addresses from the People Chips in B2:B6.
