# Hash Email Addresses Correctly in Google Sheets

> Email hashing fails on casing, invisible spaces and Gmail's dot rules – not on the hash. The normalisation order that makes digests actually match, platform by platform.

- Source: https://www.8apps.co/blog/hash-email-addresses-google-sheets
- Markdown: https://www.8apps.co/blog/hash-email-addresses-google-sheets.md
- Published: 2026-09-02
- Author: 8apps Team
- Language: en

---
## The hash is fine. The input is the problem.

`John@Example.com`, `john@example.com` and `john@example.com ` (trailing space) are one mailbox and three completely different SHA-256 digests. Every failed email match traces back to a moment like that – so this page is mostly about the three seconds before the hash.

## The universal pass: trim, then lowercase

Both major platforms agree on the baseline. Meta: *"Trim any leading and trailing spaces. Convert all characters to lowercase."* Google Ads: lowercase, whitespace stripped. In Sheets:

```
=LOWER(TRIM(A2))
```

Two traps survive that formula:

- **The non-breaking space.** `TRIM()` does not remove `CHAR(160)`, the invisible character CSV exports and copy-pastes plant. If a visually clean cell produces a wrong digest: `=SUBSTITUTE(A2, CHAR(160), "")` first.
- **Hidden characters from rich sources.** Addresses pasted from email clients occasionally carry zero-width characters. A length check against what you expect (`=LEN(A2)`) is the cheap detector.

## The platform fork: Gmail's dots and plus signs

Here the platforms genuinely differ, and copying one platform's rule to the other corrupts the data:

- **Google Ads** documents extra cleanup for `gmail.com` and `googlemail.com` addresses only: remove the dots in the username, and remove everything from a `+` onwards. `Jane.Doe+Shopping@googlemail.com` → `janedoe@googlemail.com`. Applying this to other domains is wrong – dots are significant in most mail systems, and Google's rule names those two domains alone.
- **Meta** documents no dot or plus rule at all. Trim and lowercase is the entire documented instruction.

So a Gmail-heavy list needs two email columns – one Google-normalised, one Meta-normalised – exactly as phone numbers do (that story is in our phone-hashing guide).

## Then hash – and prove it once

SHA-256, lowercase hex output – Meta's docs specify lowercase hex explicitly. Sheets has no built-in hash function (nothing cryptographic anywhere in Google's function list), so the digest comes from Apps Script or an add-on. Whichever you use, prove the pipeline once: Meta publishes the expected digest for `john_smith@gmail.com` –

```
62a14e44f765419d10fea99367361a727c12365e2520f32218d505ed9aa0f62f
```

– so hash that exact string. The right answer validates your whole chain; anything else means fix the formula before touching the list.

## The checklist

1. `SUBSTITUTE(…, CHAR(160), "")` if the source was CSV or paste
2. `LOWER(TRIM(…))` – always
3. Gmail dot/plus cleanup – Google Ads column only, those two domains only
4. SHA-256, lowercase hex
5. Test vector check – once per pipeline, not per list

## Where Hash Data fits

[Hash Data](/google-workspace/hash-data) puts the hashing functions in the sheet next to these formulas, so normalise-then-hash is a fill-down rather than a script to maintain – several algorithms, standard hex output, in the spreadsheet the list already lives in.

## Sources

- [Google Ads Help – Format your customer data file](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7659867) – read 2026-08-20
- [Meta – Conversions API customer information parameters](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/conversions-api/parameters/customer-information-parameters/) – read 2026-08-20
- [Google Sheets function list](https://support.google.com/docs/table/25273) – read 2026-08-20