How to Make a Box and Whisker Plot in Google Sheets

Google Sheets now has a built-in box and whisker chart. Select your raw numbers with the headers, go to Insert → Chart and pick Box and whisker under Statistical. No helper formulas and no candlestick trick: Sheets works out the quartiles, median, whiskers, mean and outliers by itself.

Updated 2 Nov 2026 · Google Sheets · Charts · Video 0:40

What changed: a real box plot chart in Sheets

For years, Google Sheets had no box plot. The usual answer was a workaround: work out the quartiles with helper formulas and fake the boxes with a candlestick chart. Most guides still show that. Since 22 October 2026, Google has been rolling out a real Box and whisker chart type, for every Google Workspace customer and for personal Google accounts (free Gmail too). There is no setting for an admin to switch on.

A box and whisker chart made in Excel also stays a box and whisker chart when you open the file in Sheets, and the other way round when you download it as an Excel file (Google Workspace Updates, 22 Oct 2026).

Step 1: Put the raw numbers in columns, with a header

One column per group, a name in row 1, and the raw values below it. Don't summarize anything first. In the practice file, that's the delivery days of three carriers in A1:C15:

Carrier A   Carrier B   Carrier C
3           2           5
4           3           6
…           …           …
21          7           26

Select the whole block, headers included (here A1:C15).

Step 2: Insert → Chart, then pick Box and whisker

Go to Insert → Chart. Sheets guesses a chart type first. In the chart editor on the right, open the Chart type list and scroll to the section Statistical: there you find Histogram and Box and whisker. Pick Box and whisker.

Step 3: Untick "Use column A as labels"

Sheets treats your first column as labels by default, so Carrier A disappears. In the Setup tab, untick Use column A as labels. Now every column gets its own box.

Step 4: Customize the title and the series

Under Customize → Chart & axis titles, give the chart a title (in the video: "Delivery days by carrier") and clear the old axis title. Under Customize → Series you find the box plot options:

• Outlier points: the dots outside the whiskers (on by default).
• Mean: an X marker for the average (on by default), and a mean line if you want one.
• Inner points: show every value inside the box.
• Quartile calculation: inclusive or exclusive (our chart used Exclusive Median).

How to read the chart

The box runs from the first quartile (Q1) to the third quartile (Q3), the line inside is the median, the whiskers go to the lowest and highest value that is not an outlier, and a dot is an outlier: more than 1.5 × the box height (the IQR) away from the box. With the data from the practice file (Exclusive Median):

So Carrier B is the fastest, with no outliers. Carrier A is usually fine, but one delivery took 21 days: that one dot pulls the mean (6.86) above the median (6). That's exactly what a box plot is for: you see the spread and the outliers at a glance.

Check it yourself: the "Try it" tab in the practice file lists these numbers, so you can check your chart against them.

Don't see Box and whisker yet?

Google rolls new features out in waves. Rapid Release domains got the chart from 22 October 2026, Scheduled Release domains from 6 November 2026, and each wave can take up to 15 days to reach everyone. If Statistical → Box and whisker isn't in your Chart type list yet, check again in a few days. Until then, the old candlestick workaround still works, but you won't need it for long.

More guides

• How to Use Gemini in Google Sheets: 7 New Tricks (2026) (trick 6: let Gemini make a chart for you)
• Best AI for Excel & Google Sheets 2026: ChatGPT vs Gemini
• All guides and practice files