How to merge records in Attio

Last checked September 1, 2026 · Deduptio is our product. Every claim about another tool comes from its public site or documentation and is linked in place — tell us if something is out of date.

The six steps

1. Open one of the two records. Open either duplicate. You need write access to the object — members with read-only access cannot merge or delete records.
2. Choose Merge records. From the record's actions, select Merge records. The option is available on company and person records.
3. Find the duplicate. Click the + icon and search for the other record. Search by whatever is distinctive: an email address, a domain, or the name.
4. Decide which record survives. The record on the right is the one that persists and is prioritized. Use the arrows between the two records to swap them if the wrong one is on the right. The record on the left is permanently deleted.
5. Confirm the merge. Click Merge records. List entries, notes, tasks and comments from both records are combined onto the survivor, and email threads are merged when the records are people.
6. Check the survivor. Open the merged record and confirm the identifying fields are the ones you wanted, that the activity you expected is present, and that the record still sits in the right lists. There is no undo, so this check is the last chance to notice a mistake while it is still fresh.

Behaviour per Attio's merge and delete records documentation, checked September 1, 2026.

What actually combines

A merge is not a copy of one record over another. The two records become one, and their attached objects come together: list entries, notes, tasks and comments from both end up on the surviving record. For people, email threads merge too — which is the single best reason to merge duplicates rather than delete one of them. Deleting throws the history away; merging keeps it.

Field values are the part to watch. The record on the right is prioritized, so where both records hold a value for the same attribute, the right-hand record's value is the one you keep. If the record you want to survive is missing a phone number that the other one has, note it before you merge — or copy it across first.

Three limits worth knowing before you start

Two records per merge

Merging combines exactly two records. A duplicate group of three is two merges; a group of five is four. That is fine for the pair you just noticed and painful for a backlog — see bulk merging duplicates in Attio.

People and companies only

Merge is available on company and person records. Deals, workspaces, users and custom objects cannot be merged in Attio. If two of your deals are the same opportunity, the merge menu will not help — duplicate deals in Attio covers the two approaches that do not lose pipeline history.

There is no undo

The losing record is deleted, and Attio states plainly that a deleted record cannot be recovered by you or your team — nor are records previously merged into it restored. Treat each merge as final. Where a merge is genuinely uncertain, the safer move is to leave it alone: a duplicate you have not merged is an annoyance, and a wrong merge is data loss.

If you want a way back, what is actually recoverable after a merge explains the options, including the pre-merge snapshot approach Deduptio uses to keep a 24-hour window open.

How to pick the surviving record

Not the oldest by reflex, and not the newest either. Prefer the record with the most operational continuity — the one your workflows, lists and relationships already point at:

• the richest activity: emails, calls, meetings and notes;
• the most complete and recently verified identifying fields;
• the correct owner and status;
• the one referenced by other records, lists and any external system.

Full reasoning, including the cases where the obvious choice is wrong, is in the deduplication guide.

When merging by hand stops being the answer

Merging is quick. Finding is not. If you cannot say how many duplicates the workspace has, the merge dialog is not your bottleneck — detection is. Attio prompts you when it spots an exact email or domain match, but it will not surface a person whose email changed with their job, a company on a second domain, or a name typed two ways.

Related

• Bulk merging duplicates in Attio — when the list is longer than a screen.
• How to undo a merge in Attio · Finding duplicate people · Finding duplicate companies
• Deduptio vs Attio's native merge — where the built-in merge stops being enough.