What does it do?
The Google Sheets COUNTBLANK function very simply counts the number of empty cells in a range. Empty cells are literally cells with nothing in them. It’s worth noting an empty output from a formula in a cell will also be counted as BLANK.
Syntax Explained
Value1: This is the range of cells to count that are empty.
Value2 and up to value??? (optional): This is any additional numbers or ranges to check if they are empty.
Examples
1. COUNTBLANK covering all types
The above screen shot demonstrates various types of ways a cell can be filled, or not.
The rows below are ALL deemed to be NOT BLANK when using the COUNTBLANK function:
Row 3 – Filled with a text.
Row 4 – Filled with a number (note this can be ANY number i.e. Date, whole number, fraction etc).
Row 5 – A cell containing a SPACE, not visually obvious, so I underlined it in my example.
Row 9 – A formula populating a result into a cell
Row 10 – As above but an error result
The rows below are ALL deemed to be BLANK when using the COUNTBLANK function:
Row 6 – A formula that outputs empty result, show by the red double quotes.
Row 7 – An actual empty cell, filled with nothing more than, well, nothing!
Row 8 – See above