Deduplicate records in HubSpot

HubSpot automatically deduplicates contacts using email addresses, and companies using domain names. Record IDs can also be used to manually deduplicate contacts, companies, deals, tickets, products, admin-activated objects (e.g., appointments) and custom objects. To deduplicate via import, you can include the Record ID property or custom properties that require unique values in your import file.

Users in a Professional or Enterprise account can also manually manage possible duplicates by using the duplicate management tool.

Automatic deduplication in HubSpot

HubSpot automatically deduplicates contacts and companies that are created in the CRM (e.g., imports, forms submissions) in the following ways:

• Automatically deduplicate contacts by email address
• Automatically deduplicate companies by company domain name

Learn more about how cookies are used for tracking in HubSpot or managing form submission duplicates.

Automatically deduplicate contacts by email address

When a new contact is added, HubSpot will look for a matching value in the Email property.

• If you try to manually create a contact with the same email address as an existing contact, HubSpot will alert you that a contact already exists, and you will not be able to add the additional contact.
• When added via form submissions, if a contact already exists in your account with the same email address, the new contact information will be added to the existing contact record. If the contact submits a form with their secondary email address, the email address will overwrite the existing email address for the contact. Learn more about HubSpot form submission deduplication settings or non-HubSpot forms.
• When added via import:
  • If a contact already exists in your account with the same email address, the new contact information will be added to the existing contact record. For example, if you import a list of contacts that includes "admin@hubspot.com," and an existing contact in your HubSpot account has the email "admin@hubspot.com," the imported information will be added to that existing contact record.
  • If you're using a contact's secondary email in HubSpot as their unique identifier in an import, if you include both the secondary email and Record ID as columns in your file, the secondary email will replace the primary email when imported. If you don't want the secondary email to overwrite the primary, do not also include the Record ID column in your file.
  • If you do not include the Email property in your import, each row of your import file will be imported as a new contact record.
  • If multiple records already exist with the same email address as a contact you're importing, you'll receive an import error and that contact will not be imported. 

Automatically deduplicate companies by company domain

• If you try to manually create a company with the same domain name as an existing company's primary domain, HubSpot will alert you that a company already exists.
• If a form submission includes company properties, when the Company domain name is included, the existing company with that domain will be updated. When there's no domain in the submission, if applicable, the contact's primary associated company will be updated.
• When added via import, the Company domain name will be used to deduplicate companies unless you've selected to use a custom property that requires unique values as the unique identifier instead. If you use a custom property that requires unique values, your file can include duplicate company domain names.
  • If a company already exists in your account with the same domain name or custom unique ID property value, the new company information will be added to the existing company record.
  • If multiple companies already exist with the same domain name or custom unique ID property value, you'll receive an import error and that company will not be imported. 

• • If you do not include the Company domain name or another custom unique ID property in your import, each row of your import file will be imported as a new company record.

Please note: companies created through API will not be deduplicated by the Company domain name property. This includes installed third-party sync apps. 

Manual deduplication in HubSpot

You can manually deduplicate objects (e.g., contacts, listings, custom objects) that are created in the CRM in the following ways:

• Manually deduplicate records by the Record ID property
• Manually deduplicate records by custom unique value properties

Manually deduplicate records by the Record ID property

When you want to import contact, company, deal, ticket, product, admin-activated object (e.g., service) or custom object records, you can use the Record ID property to match up these records with existing records in HubSpot. This is a default property that stores the unique value of the record and can be used to deduplicate records during the import process, or to search for a specific record in HubSpot.

• To get the Record IDs, export your records or view an individual record's value for their Record ID.
• Include a Record ID column in your file when you import your records into HubSpot. If you include the Record ID column in your import file, any rows without a value for Record ID will create new records.
• During the import, you'll be prompted to match the column with Record ID in the HubSpot property column.

Learn more about importing Record IDs and how to set up your import files.

Manually deduplicate records by custom unique value properties

For each object, you can create up to ten custom properties that require unique values. When a property requires unique values, users will be unable to enter the same value for multiple records.

For example, your company creates an order number for each online purchase. You can set up an Order number property that requires a unique number for each deal. If a user tries to create or edit a deal using an existing Order number value, they'll be notified that the number is already in use and will be unable to save the deal.

The following behavior is expected for unique value properties:

• Unique values are supported when manually creating or editing a record in HubSpot, and when creating, updating, or associating records via import.
• Unique values are not currently supported in forms. If your goal is to update or associate existing records via form submissions, it's recommended to use the default deduplication properties instead (i.e. Email, Company domain name, Record ID).
• If you create a unique value property for contacts, when visitors are converted to a contact record, any visitor property values that violate the unique property requirements will be cleared. Learn more about identifying visitors.

Manually review potential duplicate contacts and companies (Professional and Enterprise only)

You can also review possible duplicate contacts and companies in your HubSpot account using the duplicate management tool. This means you can manage them individually.

You can also deduplicate records in bulk and view an overview of duplicate record data in the data quality command center (Operations Hub Professional or Enterprise only).

The duplicate management tool identifies duplicates by comparing the records' values for the following properties:

• Contacts: First Name, Last Name, Email address, IP country, Phone number, Zip Code, and Company Name.
• Companies: Company Domain Name, Company Name, Country/Region, Phone Number, and Industry.

• In your HubSpot account, navigate to contacts or companies:
  
  • Contacts: In your HubSpot account, navigate to CRM > Contacts.
  • Companies: In your HubSpot account, navigate to CRM > Companies.
• In the upper right, click Actions > Manage duplicates.
• View a list of duplicate contact or company pairs for your review. You can also view when the most recent duplicates were identified.

Please note: above the table, Last checked for duplicates on [date] refers to the last time a duplicate was identified by a scan.

• To filter the records, click the property dropdown menus above the table, then select criteria. You can filter by Owner, Create date, Last activity date, and Discovered date (the date the potential duplicate was found). For contacts, you can also filter by Lifecycle stage.
• To compare a single pair of possible duplicates, click Review next to a pair of contacts or companies. In the dialog box, you can compare the record properties and analyze the record to keep.
  
  • To change which properties are displayed when comparing the records, click Set properties to review. Click Apply once you've selected the properties.
  • Select the contact/company you want to keep, then click Merge. Or, select the contact/company properties you want to keep from each record (Operations Hub Professional or Enterprise only). Learn more about merging contacts or companies in HubSpot.
  • If the two records are not duplicates, in the dialog box, click Cancel. In the table, click Reject to remove this identified pair from the Manage duplicates dashboard. Rejected suggestions will not appear in the duplicates tool moving forward.

• To merge duplicate records or reject suggestions in bulk (Operations Hub Professional and Enterprise only), select the checkboxes next to the records.

• To reject the suggested pair, click Reject at the top of the table. The records will be removed from the dashboard and will not appear as a suggestion moving forward.

Please note: If a record from a previously rejected suggestion is merged into another record, it could reappear in the duplicates tool..

• To undo a rejected pair, click Review rejected duplicates in the top right. Then, click Undo.

• To compare the records, click Review at the top of the table.
  • In the dialog box, click the Merge criteria dropdown menu and select the criterion that decides how the records are merged:

• • • Most recent engagement: all selected records will be merged into the record with the most recent value for the Last Engagement date property. Engagements that impact this property include interactions with website pages, forms, documents, meetings link, or tracked one-to-one emails.
    • Oldest engagement: all selected records will be merged into the record with the oldest value for the Last Engagement date property.
    • Created first: all selected records will be merged into the oldest record based on the Create date property.
    • Created last: all selected records will be merged into the newest record based on the Create date property.
    • Most recently updated: all selected records will be merged into the record with the most recent property value update. All properties, including hidden internal HubSpot properties, are evaluated. 
  • Click Merge all.

Learn more about what happens when you merge contacts or companies.