How Do You Merge Duplicates in Pipedrive?

Your Pipedrive has two Tom Smiths, or two records for the same company, and two reps are working the same customer. To merge them, go to Tools and apps > Merge Duplicates, choose which record of each pair is the primary one, click Preview, then click Merge. You need to be an admin or a regular user with the merge permission, and a merge cannot be undone.

The list in that tool only covers people and organizations. Deals are never flagged, so merging two deals is a manual job from the … menu on the deal. The rest of this page covers the detection rules, both merge routes, what wins on a conflict, how imports create and avoid duplicates, and what we could not confirm from Pipedrive’s own pages.

Where do you merge duplicates in Pipedrive?

Open Tools and apps > Merge Duplicates (the settings path is app.pipedrive.com/settings/duplicates). You land on a list of possible duplicate people and organizations. You can also reach the merge screen from the detail view of a person or organization that has a flagged duplicate.

Each entry in the list shows the names, deals, activities, creation date, owner and visibility setting of both records, so you can judge which one is the better primary. What you see depends on your role. Admins see all possible duplicates, and a regular user sees only those they have visibility permissions for. Pipedrive’s help article suggests leaving the merging to admins for that reason, according to its Merge Duplicates article (updated September 3, 2026).

If the menu item is missing, you are probably a regular user without the permission. Ask an admin to enable it, or ask the admin to do the cleanup.

How does Pipedrive detect duplicates?

Pipedrive flags people who share a name plus one more matching field, and organizations that share a name plus an address. The help article on how Merge Duplicates identifies duplicates says the feature uses the same rules as the import tool.

Record	Flagged as a duplicate when	Example from Pipedrive’s article	Not flagged
Person	Same name, plus the same phone number, the same email address or the same organization	Two Tom Smiths at ABC Corporation	Same name with a different phone, email and organization
Organization	Same name, plus the same address	Two identical ABC Corporation records	Two ABC Corporation records at different addresses, such as California and London, because one company can have several branches or franchises
Deal	Never flagged	None	Every deal, including ones with identical titles
Verdict	Names alone are never enough	Pairs with a typo or a second email slip through	Merge those by hand

Source, checked Oct 21, 2026: Pipedrive help articles on identifying duplicates and avoiding duplicates during an import, both updated September 3, 2026.

That explains most “why didn’t it find this one” complaints. A contact entered as “Tom Smith” with one email and “Thomas Smith” with another will never pair up, because the name differs and no phone, email or organization is shared.

How do you merge duplicate people and organizations?

Use the flagged list when Pipedrive has already paired the records. The steps below follow the help article.

1. Open Tools and apps > Merge Duplicates to see the list of possible duplicate people and organizations.
2. For the pair you are fixing, select the primary item. Its information takes priority when fields conflict.
3. Click Preview to see how the merged record will look. Read it for wrong or inconsistent values.
4. If something is off, click Back and change the priority before you continue.
5. Click Merge to finish.

Treat step 3 as the real decision point. Pipedrive says merged duplicates cannot be un-merged, and recommends waiting for confirmation if you are not certain that two items are the same. A shared phone number on a switchboard or a shared info@ address can pair two different people.

How do you merge two deals in Pipedrive?

Open the deal, click the … menu, choose Merge, and search for the second deal. Pick the values to keep where the two conflict, click Preview, then click Merge. The same route works for people and organizations that were not flagged, for example the Tom and Thomas Smith pair above. The detail view merge article lists the same steps and repeats the admin or permission requirement.

Pipedrive’s articles do not say what happens to activities, notes, emails or files when two deals merge, and the detail view article does not say whether a manual merge can be reversed. We could not confirm either point from the vendor’s pages, so merge one low-value pair first and check the result before you clean up a pipeline.

If you want a copy of a deal rather than a merge, that is a different feature. The … menu has a Duplicate option that creates a new deal with the people, organizations, products, labels, value, stage and pipeline carried over. Activities, emails, notes, comments, files and subscriptions do not come across (Pipedrive: How can I duplicate a deal?).

What data is kept when you merge in Pipedrive?

The primary record wins on conflicts. In Pipedrive’s example, two Tom Smith records with different phone numbers end up with the primary record’s number. In a manual merge, a banner at the bottom of the screen lets you choose which set of values to keep.

What the help pages confirm is limited to that conflict rule and the Preview screen. They do not describe how linked deals, activities, notes, emails or files are combined, and they do not state a limit on how many merges you can run. If a merge decision depends on one of those points, test a pair you do not mind losing first.

Which Pipedrive plan includes Merge Duplicates?

We could not find a plan requirement. The Merge Duplicates article says the feature is for admin users and regular users with the correct permission enabled, and says nothing about a plan tier. Pipedrive’s pricing page returned a 403 error when we tried to read it, so we did not check it there. Open Tools and apps on your own account to see whether the item is present.

For comparison, Pipedrive’s duplicated-emails article does state plan limits for related features: email sync is available on Growth and higher plans, and Smart Bcc is included on all plans. Our Pipedrive free plan and pricing page lists what each plan adds.

How do imports create and avoid duplicates in Pipedrive?

Every import asks whether to recognise and merge duplicates or to create multiple records. With merging on, Pipedrive matches a person on name plus any one of organization, phone or email, and an organization on name plus address. A match adds the new data from the file to the existing record. A row with no match becomes a new record.

Pipedrive’s own example shows how that goes wrong. Four rows named Jon Snow: row 2 matches the first on organization and its phone is added, row 3 matches on email and updates the organization, and row 4 shares nothing with the others, so you end up with two Jon Snows. Deals are different again. The article says there is no duplicate identifier for deals, so same-name deals in a file are all imported.

Three habits cut the damage:

• Put an email or phone column on every people row, and an address on every organization row. Without them the matching rule has nothing to match on.
• Run your file through our CRM import file checker before you load it, and keep to the per-file ceiling in CRM import limits compared. Pipedrive’s update guide gives 50 MB and 50,000 rows.
• Clean the source first. Our data cleaning before migration guide covers the dedupe pass that belongs before any import.

Updating existing records works differently. Export the list with the Pipedrive System ID column, edit the values, leave the ID column alone, then import and map that ID field. Pipedrive matches each row to its record by ID, so no new records appear. This is described in Updating Pipedrive data with a spreadsheet. Pipedrive’s import pages we read do not name an “update existing” option, so the System ID route is the documented one.

How do you stop duplicates from forms, email sync and integrations?

You cannot switch duplicates off, so the work is stopping the usual sources and scheduling a cleanup. Three sources matter.

Email. A repeated email on a record is usually a duplicated email, not a duplicated person. Pipedrive’s duplicated emails article lists teammates syncing the same thread, a shared address synced by several people, and one email arriving through both email sync and Smart Bcc. Its fix is to use one of the two features and have the thread owner mark it Private. Our email sync setup guide covers the sync choices.

Web Forms and LeadBooster. Web Forms are part of the LeadBooster add-on, per the Web Forms help article. That article does not say how a submission is matched to an existing person. Before you rely on it, submit a test form with the email of a contact you already have and see whether a second record appears. Our LeadBooster review covers the add-on.

Integrations and automations. A sync that creates a person without first looking for one by email will create duplicates, because the matching rules we found documented belong to the import tool and the Merge Duplicates list. Build a find-or-create step into the flow, as in our Pipedrive automation guide and API integration guide. Setup choices made early, such as required fields, are in how to set up Pipedrive.

What causes common Pipedrive duplicate problems, and how do you fix them?

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Two Tom Smiths, but neither shows in Merge Duplicates	Different phone, email and organization on each, so the matching rule fails	Open one, click … > Merge, search for the other, preview, merge
Two ABC Corporation records are not flagged	Different addresses, which Pipedrive treats as separate branches	Merge by hand only if they really are one company
Two deals with the same title	Deals are never flagged	Open a deal, click … > Merge, choose the values to keep
No Merge option in the menu	You are not an admin and lack the merge permission	Ask an admin to enable it, or have the admin merge
Same email shows twice on a deal	Email sync plus Smart Bcc, or teammates syncing the same thread	Use one method, mark the thread Private
Import produced a second person	The row shared no organization, phone or email with the first	Add email or phone to the file, keep the merge choice on, or update by System ID
Merged the wrong pair	Merge Duplicates merges cannot be reversed	Check Preview each time; rebuild the lost record by hand

Source, checked Oct 21, 2026: the Pipedrive help articles linked in this page, all updated September 3, 2026.

Who should do the cleanup, and when?

Pick one admin, schedule it, and treat it as a monthly job. Merge Duplicates cannot be reversed, regular users only see the pairs they have visibility on, and a rushed cleanup is how a correct record gets merged into a wrong one. An admin sees every flagged pair and can judge which record should be primary.

If your account has thousands of duplicates, a heavy import history or several integrations feeding it, the cleanup is easier with a plan. That is part of our Pipedrive implementation service, and you can contact us for a review. The rest of the setup is in our Pipedrive guide.

Founder’s note, Alpit Patel. Pipedrive makes merging quick, and that is the risk. I’d decide which record wins and check what it keeps before the first merge. I founded aibrevo in San Francisco in 2021, and through autoesta I have overseen 320+ GoHighLevel implementation projects across med spas, real estate, healthcare, dental, home services, SaaS and professional-services clients in the US, UK and UAE. About Alpit

Sources

• Pipedrive, Merge Duplicates, updated September 3, 2026: access, roles, steps, primary record, permanence, manual merge.
• Pipedrive, How does the Merge Duplicates feature identify duplicates, updated September 3, 2026: matching rules for people and organizations.
• Pipedrive, How to avoid duplicates during an import, updated September 3, 2026: import matching, deals, Jon Snow example.
• Pipedrive, Updating Pipedrive data with a spreadsheet, updated September 3, 2026: System ID, 50 MB and 50,000 rows.
• Pipedrive, Merging items in the detail view and How can I duplicate a deal, both updated September 3, 2026.
• Pipedrive, Why are my emails duplicated and Web Forms, both updated September 3, 2026.