Duplicate contacts: how they are spotted and how to merge them
Why the same person shows up twice, how to combine them, and what happens to what each one had.
It is normal for the same person to appear twice. They wrote to you on WhatsApp from one number, emailed you from an address you did not have, and to meruma they were two strangers until something tied them together.
Why duplicates happen
Every channel identifies people its own way: WhatsApp by the number, email by the address, Instagram by the username. When a message arrives from an identifier that is not on any record, meruma creates a new one — because losing the message would be worse.
They also duplicate when someone manually adds a contact that already existed, or when importing a list.
Merging two contacts
- Open either of the two contacts.
- Choose Merge contact.
- Search for and pick the other contact.
- On the second step, choose which of the two remains. Read it carefully: this is the decision that cannot be undone.
- Click Merge.
The contact you did not pick transfers everything to the one that remains: chats, pipeline cards, notes, events, phone numbers and fields. And is then deleted.
Before confirming, check two things
That they really are the same person. Two siblings with the same surname at the same business are not a duplicate. Merging is easy; unmerging afterwards is not possible.
Which one should remain. When both have data, keep the one with the fuller record or the longer history: it is the one that will need the least reviewing afterwards.
Keeping them from multiplying
The most common cause of mass duplicates is a mailbox with create new contacts for unknown emails turned on for an address that receives newsletters and notifications. If that happened to you, turn it off on the channel connection before you start merging, or you will be cleaning up while more keep being created.
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