Duplicate list entries

When two records that were really the same entity both sat in a list, merging them leaves the surviving record in that list twice. The Duplicate list entries section at the bottom of the Duplicates page keeps your lists clean.

Automatic cleanup

Every live merge checks the merged record's lists for the duplicate entries the merge just created and removes the extra one — keeping the entry that belonged to the record you chose to keep, since that's the one carrying the entry-level values (a stage, an owner) you expect to survive. When that entry can't be identified, the older of the two is kept instead. Like a manual removal below, the removed entry is snapshotted first and is restorable for 24 hours from this same removal log. This runs as part of the merge itself and cannot fail it: a list outside Deduptio's Attio access is left as-is, and the merge log records it as a warning rather than an error. In the rare case the entry can be removed but not snapshotted first (see rollback), the removal still happens — a duplicate list membership is what you would notice — and the merge log says the removal was not restorable.

Merges that use the legacy engine take a different approach: rather than re-creating a list entry and cleaning up the duplicate afterwards, they check first and skip re-creating an entry for any list the kept record is already in. Nothing is created, so there is nothing to remove.

Removing duplicates manually

Lists with a record present more than once show a Remove duplicates button. Choose whether to keep the oldest or newest entry; the others are removed and logged in the removal log with a 24-hour Restore.

Merging records from a list

When a scan has found duplicate records and two or more of them sit in the same list, the list row shows Merge records (N). One click merges those groups with their proposed survivors, and the automatic cleanup removes the leftover entries — the list comes out with one entry per real record.

Restoring

The removal log below the lists shows every removed entry. Restore re-adds the entry with its saved values. Restores are available for 24 hours; after that the snapshot expires.

Why duplicate list entries happen at all

A list entry in Attio is its own object, not a property of the record. It carries its own attributes — a stage, an owner, a date added, whatever the list defines — which is what makes lists useful and also what makes them survive a merge. When two records are merged, Attio moves the losing record's list entries onto the survivor rather than discarding them, because discarding them would silently destroy the stage and owner values sitting on those entries. The result is correct and unhelpful at the same time: nothing is lost, and the same record now appears twice in the list.

This is why the cleanup is a separate step rather than something folded into the merge. The merge has to preserve the entries; the cleanup decides which one to keep. Keeping the oldest entry preserves the original date added and the position the record has held in the list, which is usually what you want for a pipeline or a sequence. Keeping the newest makes sense when the more recent entry carries the current stage and the older one is stale.

What the entry values do

Removing an entry removes its attribute values with it, which is the reason each removal is snapshotted. If the entry you removed was the one holding the live stage, restoring it within the 24-hour window brings those values back exactly as they were. After the window closes the snapshot is purged and the values are gone — the record stays in the list, but whatever the removed entry carried cannot be recovered from Deduptio.

If your lists carry stage or owner attributes that matter, it is worth checking the surviving entry after a bulk cleanup rather than assuming. The removal log names every entry that was taken out and when, so a quick pass over it is enough to confirm the right one survived.

Lists and scheduled scans

Scheduled scans run the same automatic cleanup as a manual merge, so a workspace on a weekly scan does not accumulate duplicate entries between sessions. What a scan will not do is clean up duplicate entries that existed before you connected Deduptio, or entries created by an import that added the same record to a list twice without a merge being involved. Those show up in the Duplicate list entries section and are removed the same way.

For the merge behaviour itself, see merging. For what happens when Attio refuses a merge outright, see when a merge fails. The recovery window that covers both merges and entry removals is documented in rollback and safety.