Copying Data in Google Sheets

Note: This is meant as a quick-and-dirty guide to getting up and running with a Google Sheets macro. I don't claim that this is enough to keep things well organized.

1. Head to script.google.com
2. Click "New Project"
3. Click "Untitled project" at the top and give your project a descriptive name

4. Modify the following to suit your needs and paste it into the editor:
   

    function copyData() {
     // This will grab the currently active spreadsheet, which will be the one
     // you're looking at when you run the script.
     var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActive();
   
     // This is the source sheet/tab. Change Sheet1 to the name of the source
     // sheet.
     var sourceSheet = ss.getSheetByName('Sheet1');
   
     // This is the destination sheet/tab. Change Sheet2 to the name of the destination sheet.
     var destSheet = ss.getSheetByName('Sheet2');
   
     // This is the range that you'll be copying from the source. Change A:A
     // to be whatever the valid A1 notation range should be.
     var sourceRange = sourceSheet.getRange("A:A");
   
     // This is the range that you'll be copying from the source. Change A:A
     // to be whatever the valid A1 notation range should be.
     var destRange = destSheet.getRange("A:A");
   
     // Do the actual copying
     sourceRange.copyTo(destRange, SpreadsheetApp.CopyPasteType.PASTE_NORMAL);
   }
   

5. Hit Ctrl+s to save

6. Open your spreadsheet

7. Click Tools -> Macros -> Import

8. Click "Add Function"

9. Close the dialog window

You can now use the function you created by clicking Tools -> Macros -> copyData (or whatever you renamed the function to).

There are a lot of other tricks you can use, like creating a trigger to run the function when the sheet changes, setting a keyboard shortcut, etc. but those are outside the scope of this post.