Overview
Over time, your contact list can pick up duplicates — from imports, manual entry, or contacts being shared into your agency. Tern can help you find likely duplicates and combine them into a single record so nothing gets lost.
There are now three locations from which you can merge duplicate contacts:
From the new Duplicate Contacts page
From the "three dots" action menu on the Contacts page.
From the "three dots" action menu on a specific Contact's card for which you are the owner
This article will cover all three below.
🚨 Merging contacts cannot be undone. Once two contacts are merged, the duplicate record is permanently removed and its information is rolled into the contact you keep. Take a moment to review before you confirm.
How to find duplicate contacts
Tern can now surface potential duplicate contacts! To navigate to the Duplicate Contact page, click the "three dots" action menu from the Contacts page and click View duplicate contacts.
Once on the Duplicate Contacts page, Tern will identify potential duplicates at three levels of confidence:
High confidence: both contacts share the same name and email address
Medium confidence: both contacts share the same name and either the same phone number or birthday
Low confidence: both contacts share the same name and zip code
Each row on the page represents a potential duplicate contact pair. You can filter down the suggested duplicate contacts by:
Contact name
Contact email
Contact phone
Contact owner name or email
Confidence level
Click on a row to view the suggested duplicate contact details, determine which contact should be retained, and merge the contacts.
The contact you're merging from will be removed, and all of their associated data will transfer to the contact you're merging into. Merging combines all information from both contacts — including emails, phone numbers, trip history, form responses, documents, tags, loyalty programs, and relationships — into one unified record.
If both contacts have the identical data fields (like the same email address), duplicates are intelligently handled — matching emails won't be duplicated, for example.
Merging contacts from the contacts page
If you know which contacts you want to merge, you can quickly do so directly from the Contacts page. To do so, click the "three dots" action menu and click Merge contacts.
A modal will open where you can select the source and destination contacts you would like to merge.
Search for and select the contact you want to merge from (the record you want removed).
Search for and select the contact you want to merge into (the record you want to keep).
Review the merge preview and confirm.
The contact you're merging from will be removed, and all of their associated data will transfer to the contact you're merging into. If both contacts have the same type of data (like the same email address), duplicates are intelligently handled — matching emails won't be duplicated, for example.
Merging contacts from a contact card
When navigating through your Contacts, you may decide you want to merge the contact you are currently viewing. To merge the current contact, click the "three dots" action menu and click Merge Contact.
This will open the merge contact modal with this specific contact loaded as the Source Contact to be merged. Now you can:
Search for and select the contact you want to merge into (the record you want to keep).
Review the merge preview and confirm.
The contact you're merging from will be removed, and all of their associated data will transfer to the contact you're merging into. If both contacts have the same type of data (like the same email address), duplicates are intelligently handled — matching emails won't be duplicated, for example.
Important notes
You can only merge contacts that you own, unless you are an agency admin with edit access to both contacts.
Cross-owner merges are currently only possible from the Duplicate Contacts page.
If two contacts are merged across contact owners, the owner of the destination contact will remain as the owner of the merged contact. The owner of the source contact will become a collaborator of the merged contact.
If contacts are managed by different agencies, they cannot be merged.
Contact merges cannot be undone. Make sure you've selected the correct contacts before confirming.
When information exists on both contacts (like first name or last name), the destination contact's information takes priority. Blank fields on the destination contact are filled in from the source contact.