Merge duplicate contacts

The same person can end up in your contacts twice, for example when they book with a work email and later buy with a personal one. Merging joins the records into one, so their whole history sits in one place.

Before you start

• Merging cannot be undone. Check you have the right people before you press Merge.
• The records must show on the same page of the list. Search for the person so both appear together.

Steps

Find duplicates

1. Open Contacts, press the ··· menu at the top right and choose Manage duplicates.
2. The window lists email addresses that appear on more than one contact, with how many times, for example jo@example.com ×2. If there are none it says No duplicate email addresses found.

Merge them

1. Close the window and type the email address (or the person's name) in Search name or email.
2. Tick both records.
3. In the selection bar, press ··· and choose Merge.
4. In Merge contacts, pick the contact to keep. Keep the one with the details you trust most.
5. Press Merge. A message says, for example, 2 contacts merged.

What happens next

• The other records merge into the one you kept. Their notes, tags, orders, bookings, messages and progress move across, and any empty details on the kept record (such as a missing phone number) are filled from the others.
• The merged-away records disappear from your lists and counts.
• The merge is listed on Contacts › Bulk Actions.

To stop duplicates happening: form submissions are matched to existing contacts by email address first, then by phone number, and imports skip anyone whose email or phone you already have. Duplicates usually come from people using a different email and a different phone.

For agencies

Open the client first (Sub-accounts › Open). You can only merge contacts within one account.

Troubleshooting

"Pick the contact to keep, with at least one other selected" You need at least two records ticked, and one of them chosen as the one to keep.

The Merge window doesn't list one of the people I ticked. It lists the ticked records on the current page. Search so that both records are on the same page, tick them, and merge again.

Manage duplicates doesn't show two records I know are the same person. It only compares email addresses, and only among active contacts. Two records with different addresses, or with only phone numbers, won't appear. Search by name or phone number instead.

I merged the wrong people. A merge cannot be undone. Edit the kept record back to the right details, and add the other person again by hand.

Related

• Find people in your contacts list
• Archive, delete or erase a contact
• Import contacts from a CSV file