How to generate an uuid in google sheet?

Question

How to generate an uuid in google sheet (for exemple ccb8a660-91c9-a556-58e0-4fa7-229516872004).

Either with a macro? or a formula?

Answer 1

Thanks for all the details on this thread. What I ended up doing is creating a macro that will fill all the selected cells in a range each with their own UUID. I use this approach to set a value in selected cells and not worry about "overwriting" them. I can use Protect Range to avoid the cells being updated inadvertently.

This script has 2 checks:

1. selected range must cover just a single column
2. all selected cells must be blank (i.e. no selected cell can have a value)

If the above 2 constraints are met, then each cell gets filled with a value. Here's the macro code:

function fillSelectedWithUUIDs() {
  let curSheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();
  let curSelection = curSheet.getSelection();
  let curRange = curSelection.getActiveRange();

  let ui = SpreadsheetApp.getUi();

  if (curRange.getNumColumns() !== 1) {
    ui.alert(`Range must only contain one column.`);
    return;
  }

  for (let i = 0; i < curRange.getNumRows(); i++) {
    let curCell = curRange.getCell(1 + i, 1);
    if (curCell.getValue() !== "") {
      ui.alert(`ERROR: Cannot overwrite value in cell (${curCell.getA1Notation()})`);
      return;
    }
  }

  for (let i = 0; i < curRange.getNumRows(); i++) {
    curRange.getCell(1 + i, 1).setValue(Utilities.getUuid())
  }

  ui.alert(`Added ${curRange.getNumRows()} UUIDs`);
}

Hope this is of use to some!