---
title: "How to Search and Merge Similar Contacts"
description: "Search for duplicate clients by phone, email, or username and merge them into one card."
---

# How to Search and Merge Similar Contacts

The system lets you search for contacts that may belong to the same person (by phone, email, or username) and merge them into one client card. After merging, all communication history appears in one place.

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## When You Need It

- Suspected duplicate — client wrote from different channels but separate records were created.
- Different contacts with the same phone or email.
- Need to merge history from Telegram, Viber, and Email into one card.

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## What You Should Know

- **Search** — by phone, email, or username. The system shows contacts that match any of these fields.
- **Merge** — you choose which field values to keep (from current client or from the one you're merging). After merge, all channels appear in one card.
- **Empty card** — if the old card has no channels left after merging, the system offers to delete it so the Clients list stays free of duplicates.
- **Where available** — in the client card in the Clients module and in the Operator Panel (when viewing a dialog).

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## Before You Start

- [x] You are logged in with operator rights or higher.
- [x] You have navigated to the **Clients** module via `Menu -> Clients` (or opened a dialog in the Operator Panel).
- [x] You have the client card open (Clients module — click pencil, or Operator Panel — dialog with client).

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## Step-by-Step Instructions

### 1. Open the client card

- **In Clients module:** find the client in the table, click the **Edit** icon (pencil).
- **In Operator Panel:** open a dialog with the client — the card appears in the side panel.

### 2. Find similar contacts

- If the system already found similar contacts — you will see the **"Similar contacts found"** message with the count and a **Show** button.
- If not — click **Search for similar contacts**.
- The **"Search for similar contacts"** dialog opens. You can search manually:
  - Select search field: phone, email, or username.
  - Enter the value — search runs automatically (with a short delay).

### 3. Select a contact to merge

- In the list of found contacts, select the contact you want to merge with the current client.
- Click **Merge contacts**.

### 4. Compare and choose field values

- The **"Differences Table"** opens with the **"Value from base"** and **"Value from similar"** columns.
- For each field where values differ, select which value to keep.
- Click **Confirm merge**.

### 5. Delete the empty card (if offered)

- If the old card has no channels left after merging, the **"Delete the empty client card?"** dialog appears.
- Click **Delete** — the empty card disappears from the Clients list, and dialog history, tags and data are moved to the current card. Nothing is lost.
- Click **Keep** if you want to keep the empty card — you can delete it later by repeating the merge.

### 6. Verify the result

- The dialog closes, the card refreshes.
- In the **Channels** section, all channels from the merged contact appear.
- Dialog history from all channels is now available in one card.

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## What Happens After

- All contacts from the merged client are linked to the current client.
- Channels appear in the card. You can navigate to dialogs in any channel.
- If the old card was left without channels and you confirmed deletion, the Clients list keeps a single up-to-date card without duplicates.

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## How to Verify Everything Worked

- Check that all expected channels appeared in the client card.
- Open a channel and verify that dialog history displays correctly.
- Try navigating to dialogs from different channels — all should work.

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## Related Materials

- [Why does one client have many channels?](/en/broadcastusers/explanation/why-one-client-many-channels.md)
- [Client card sections](/en/broadcastusers/explanation/client-card-sections.md)
- [View client card](/en/broadcastusers/how-to/view-client-card.md)
- [View client channels](/en/broadcastusers/how-to/view-client-channels.md)
- [Cross-channel in Operator Panel](/en/learn/operator/operator-overview.md#_12-cross-channel)