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How to unmerge an incorrectly merged record in HubSpot with Koalify

Merged the wrong records in HubSpot? Here's how to unmerge them with Koalify using the app event on the merged record, step by step.

Merges happen fast. You're clearing a duplicate card, you're not paying full attention, and you merge two records that shouldn't have been merged. HubSpot has no native way to undo this. But if the merge was done through Koalify, you can unmerge it directly from the record.

This guide picks up at the point where you've already spotted the mistake and you're looking at the incorrectly merged record.

1. Open the Koalify app event on the merged record

On the merged record, find the Koalify app event in the activity timeline. This event is the audit trail for the merge. It shows you exactly what happened, so you can confirm this was a mistake before you undo anything.

The app event shows you:

  • The two email addresses that were on the original records
  • The duplicate rule that flagged the pair
  • How the merge was triggered (in this case, from the duplicate card)

Take a moment to read this before acting. It tells you whether you're looking at a genuine bad merge or two records that were correctly combined.

Open the Koalify app event on the merged record

2. Click Unmerge and review the properties

In the app event, click the Unmerge option. Koalify shows you the different property values that will be split back out across the two records.

Review these before you go any further. This is your chance to confirm the two records really are distinct and that unmerging is the right call.

Click Unmerge and review the properties

3. Confirm the unmerge (and mark as non-duplicates)

Click Unmerge to confirm. At this point Koalify also lets you record the two records as non-duplicates in the same step.

If the same rule keeps matching records that aren’t real duplicates, adjust the duplicate rule so it doesn’t happen to other records. 

Confirm the unmerge (and mark as non-duplicates)

4. Open the recreated record

Once the unmerge is confirmed, Koalify recreates the record that was merged away, so you can open it back up in HubSpot. The two records now exist separately again, each with its correct associations.

5. Check the rejected duplicates in the duplicate card

To confirm everything landed correctly, open the Koalify duplicate card on the record. The pair you just unmerged will now appear under rejected duplicates. In the example, that's the version of Caleb King at Supered.

Check the rejected duplicates in the duplicate card

That's it. The records are separate again, and Koalify knows not to flag them as a duplicate pair in future.

Need to unmerge more than a few records?

If a workflow or rule merged many records by mistake, unmerging them one by one isn’t practical. Bulk unmerge incorrectly merged records with a workflow instead. Not sure which records were affected? Filter your Koalify Merges by workflow or date first.

 

What happens when you unmerge

Unmerging is best effort. Koalify rebuilds both records as closely as it safely can, but it can’t rewind time.

  1. The merged record is recreated. HubSpot can’t bring a merged record back, so Koalify creates a new one from the values it saved at the moment of the merge.
    • It gets a new record ID, and its create date is the date of the unmerge. Integrations, reports, lists or workflows that use the old ID or the original create date won’t match it.
    • Read-only and calculated properties, such as scores and rollups, aren’t copied. HubSpot recalculates them.
    • If HubSpot rejects a value, Koalify skips that value and still creates the record. A unique property that’s already taken is one example.
    • Contacts: the recreated contact’s email is removed from the surviving record’s secondary emails.
  2. The surviving record is cleaned up. A property goes back to its pre-merge value only if the merge changed it and it still holds the value the merge wrote. Anything edited since, by a person or a workflow, is left alone.
  3. Associations are moved back. Companies, deals, tickets, emails, meetings, calls, notes and tasks that came from the merged record move to the recreated record.

What an unmerge can’t undo

  • Form submissions stay on the surviving contact. HubSpot stores form submissions as part of the contact’s own history rather than as associations, and doesn’t allow moving them to another contact. So the recreated contact won’t have its form submissions back.
  • Changes made after the merge stay on the surviving record. This includes property edits, new activities, new associations, and values a workflow reformatted, such as a phone number or country.
  • Other HubSpot history stays on the surviving record too. This includes email engagement, web tracking and analytics history, and list memberships.
  • Shared associations move. If both records had the same association before the merge, such as the same company, it ends up only on the recreated record.
  • Combined values may not separate cleanly. Values created by merge rules, such as joined text or summed numbers, are most at risk, especially if you undo merges out of order.

Limits

  • Only contact and company merges made by Koalify can be unmerged, and only merges made after the unmerge feature launched.
  • Each merge can be unmerged once. If an unmerge fails, you can retry it.
  • Unmerging is free but needs an active subscription.