# What happens when you merge in Dedupely for Close | Dedupely > What happens to Leads, Contacts and Opportunities when Dedupely merges them in Close: what moves, what stays and why Leads go first. - URL: https://dedupe.ly/blog/merge-in-dedupely-for-close - Section: blog - Published: 2026-10-23 - Site index: https://dedupe.ly/llms.txt - Any page: append `.md` to its URL for this plain-text form --- [Blog](https://dedupe.ly/blog) Dedupely Insights ## What happens when you merge in Dedupely for Close By [Gaby Salinas](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gbyslns) Updated October 23, 2026 # min read TL;DR - Close Leads merge with Close's own merge, and the kept Lead gets the other's history. - Close's API has no Contact merge, so a merge moves each duplicate's data and then removes it. - Meetings and tasks can't move to another Contact, because Close's API doesn't allow it. - Merging Leads before Contacts brings duplicate people together under one Lead first. - Dedupely merges duplicate Leads, Contacts and Opportunities in Close, each in its own way. In Close, a duplicate is rarely just one record. A second Lead for the same company carries its own Contacts, calls, emails and Opportunities. A second Contact for the same person splits that person's history in two. Before you merge, it helps to know what the merge does to each of those pieces. Close treats Leads, Contacts and Opportunities differently, so Dedupely merges each one differently too. In this post, you'll see what happens when Dedupely merges each Close object, what moves to the record you keep and what can't. You'll also see why the order of your merges matters. For how duplicates form in Close and what Close's own tools do, see our post on [duplicate leads and contacts in Close CRM](https://dedupe.ly/blog/close-crm-duplicates). ### What Dedupely works with in Close Dedupely syncs three Close objects: Leads, Contacts and Opportunities. In Close, a Lead is a company or account, and Contacts are the people under it. Connecting Close only reads your data. Syncing never merges, edits or deletes a record, and nothing changes in Close until you merge. Dedupely connects through OAuth and uses your own Close permissions, so you need permission to edit and delete the objects you want to dedupe. Each object is matched and merged on its own. A Lead can only merge with another Lead, and a Contact with another Contact. ### What happens to each Close object at a glance | Object | How the merge happens | What the record you keep gets | What doesn't move | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Leads | Close's own Lead merge | The other Lead's history and Contacts | Nothing listed; field values follow your Merge Rules, or Close's own logic without them | | Contacts | Dedupely moves the data, then removes the duplicate | Field values, Opportunities, Notes, Calls and Emails | Meetings and Tasks | | Opportunities | The two Opportunities are combined | The combined record | No activity moves, since activity belongs to Leads and Contacts | ### What happens when Dedupely merges Leads Close has its own merge for Leads, and Dedupely uses it. Dedupely chooses which Lead is the primary one, and the duplicate is merged into it. The primary Lead keeps the other Lead's history and its Contacts. Calls, emails and notes logged on either Lead end up on one company record, so reps see the full picture in one place. Merge Rules apply to Close Leads too, so you decide which values the surviving Lead keeps. Without them, Close decides: when the two Leads disagree on the name, description, status or a custom field, Close keeps the destination Lead's value. The created date and creator come from the older of the two Leads. As of October 2026, from Close's help center: [Editing, merging and deleting leads](https://help.close.com/docs/deleting-leads); Close API docs: [Leads](https://developer.close.com/resources/leads) (Merge two leads). ### What happens when Dedupely merges Contacts Close's API has no merge for Contacts. Its Contact endpoints cover listing, creating, fetching, updating and deleting, with no merge among them. So Dedupely does the work a Contact merge would do, in three parts. - **Field values:** the duplicate's values are copied onto the Contact you keep, following your rules for which value wins. Blank values never overwrite existing data. - **Related records:** the duplicate's Opportunities, Notes, Calls and Emails move to the Contact you keep. - **The duplicate:** once its data has moved, Dedupely removes it from Close. As of October 2026, from Close's API docs: [Leads and Contacts endpoints](https://developer.close.com/resources/leads). #### Meetings and tasks can't be moved Meetings and tasks stay behind. This is a limit of Close's API: Close doesn't allow the Contact on a meeting or a task to be changed. A meeting or task logged on the duplicate Contact can't be moved to the Contact you keep. If meetings or tasks on a duplicate are important to your team, look at that Contact before you merge it. Whatever happens to the removed Contact in Close, Merge History in Dedupely keeps its original data. Example The same buyer exists twice under one Lead, once added by a rep and once created by a form. One Contact has two calls and an open Opportunity, and the other has an email thread and a demo meeting. After the merge, the Contact you keep has both calls, the email thread and the Opportunity. The demo meeting stays on the removed Contact. ### What happens when Dedupely merges Opportunities A duplicate Opportunity inflates your pipeline, since the same deal counts twice. Dedupely can combine the two into one record. Opportunities are the simplest of the three. In Close, activities like calls, emails and notes belong to a Lead or a Contact, never to an Opportunity. So combining two Opportunities doesn't move any activity, because there's none attached to them. What matters here is the deal data itself, such as value, status and close date. Decide which values should win before you merge, so the surviving Opportunity reflects the deal as it stands. ### Why Leads go before Contacts When a company exists as two Leads, its people usually exist twice too, one set under each Lead. The order of your merges decides how much work that takes. A Lead merge brings both Leads' Contacts under one company in a single step. The same person may then appear twice under that one Lead. Those are now ordinary duplicate Contacts, and a Contact merge resolves them. Dedupely only merges Contacts that sit under the same Lead, so the Lead merge comes first. Starting with Contacts leaves the company split across two Leads. You'd still need the Lead merge afterward, and you'd check the same people twice. Our post on [duplicate leads and why they form faster than contacts](https://dedupe.ly/blog/duplicate-leads) covers why Lead duplicates tend to grow first. ### What stays the same with every merge #### You decide what counts as a duplicate Dedupely matches on any field Close syncs, with exact matching, typo-tolerant matching, sounds-alike matching, shared words or a website's root domain. What counts as a duplicate is case by case. Two offices of one company can be one Lead for one team and two for another. #### You decide which values win You can choose which record survives, such as the oldest, the newest or the most complete, and set rules field by field. Without your own rules, Dedupely follows Close's merge logic. Either way, you can preview each merge before it happens. #### Every merge is recorded Each merge appears in Merge History, with the original records and the values that won. You can download it as a CSV. Our post on [why you need a record of every merge](https://dedupe.ly/blog/crm-merge-history) explains what that record is good for. #### Most merges can be undone Close says a merged Lead can't be unmerged in Close, but most Dedupely merges can be undone for 30 days from Merge History. Treat every merge as permanent anyway. After 30 days, restore the original values from the Merge History CSV and reject the false match. Our playbook on [what to do if you merged the wrong records](https://dedupe.ly/knowledge-base/i-merged-the-wrong-records) covers each step. Note Activity on a Lead stays with the Lead. A Contact merge moves the duplicate Contact's own Opportunities, Notes, Calls and Emails. It doesn't touch what sits on the company record. ### How to start merging Close duplicates with Dedupely Connect Close, and Dedupely syncs your Leads, Contacts and Opportunities so you can build duplicate searches on the fields you choose. Merge your Leads first, then the Contacts under them, with rules for which value wins and a preview of each merge. Once a search is tested, you can merge the duplicates you're certain of, like exact email matches, automatically on a schedule. [Merge your first Close duplicates](https://v2.app.dedupe.ly/signup) ### Know what each merge does before you run it In Close, each object merges its own way. Leads use Close's merge and bring their history and Contacts with them. Contacts are merged by Dedupely, moving everything Close's API allows. Opportunities combine without any activity to move. The gaps are meetings and tasks on duplicate Contacts, and they come from Close's API. Knowing that, and merging Leads before Contacts, lets you plan a cleanup where nothing surprises you afterward. ### Frequently asked questions #### Can you merge contacts in Close CRM? Not through Close's API, which has no Contact merge. Dedupely moves the duplicate's field values, Opportunities, Notes, Calls and Emails to the Contact you keep, then removes the duplicate. Meetings and tasks can't be moved, because Close doesn't allow their Contact to change. #### What happens to meetings when you merge contacts in Close? They stay with the duplicate Contact, which is removed. Close's API doesn't allow a meeting's Contact to be changed, so no tool can move it through the API. If a duplicate's meetings matter to your team, check that Contact and note what they hold before you merge it. #### Should you merge leads or contacts first in Close? Leads first. When a company exists as two Leads, merging them brings both sets of Contacts under one Lead in one step. Any person who then appears twice under that Lead is a duplicate Contact you can merge next, instead of checking the same people twice. #### What happens to activity when you merge opportunities in Close? Nothing moves, because there's nothing to move. In Close, calls, emails, notes and other activities belong to a Lead or a Contact, never to an Opportunity. Merging two Opportunities combines the deal records, so decide first which value, status and close date should win. #### Can you undo a merge in Close? ~~Close's help center says a merged Lead can't be unmerged, and Dedupely merges can't be undone either, since they happen directly in your CRM.~~ Not in Close itself: its help center says a merged Lead can't be unmerged. Most Dedupely merges can be undone for 30 days from Merge History. Undo is for records that weren't duplicates, so treat every merge as permanent. Merge History also keeps the original values of every merged record, and you can restore them in Close from its CSV export. See [how to undo a merge](https://dedupe.ly/knowledge-base/undo-a-merge). Behind the article ### Gaby Salinas Marketing Assistant at Dedupely Gaby Salinas came to CRM data from marketing and advertising, so she looks at duplicates from two sides: the match and merge logic behind them, and what they do to the people using the CRM, like the rep who calls a customer twice, the admin who gets blamed and the cleanup nobody wants to start. As Marketing Assistant at Dedupely, she follows how RevOps teams, end users, consultants and technical teams actually work with their data: the records they stop trusting, the workarounds they build and the moment they finally decide to clean up. What she finds shapes most of what Dedupely publishes. [Connect with Gaby on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gbyslns) ### Contact us We’d be happy to help you get this set up. #### Write us a message We probably know the answer to your question already help@dedupe.ly Email copied to your clipboard! [Book a Zoom Whether you’re getting started or getting intense. Get in touch! Book a zoom](https://meetings.dedupe.ly/meetings/gaby-salinas/dedupely-zoom-scheduler) ### Discover Related Blog Posts Stay updated with our latest articles and insights. [Duplicates Duplicate leads and contacts in Close CRM Close CRM merges leads one pair at a time and has no contact merge in its API. How duplicate leads and contacts form, and how to clean them. Gaby Salinas October 19, 2026](https://dedupe.ly/blog/close-crm-duplicates) [CRM Organization Why you need a record of every merge in your CRM A merge record shows which records went in, which values won, who merged them and when. It answers questions from sales, security and leadership. Gaby Salinas October 19, 2026](https://dedupe.ly/blog/crm-merge-history) [Duplicates Merge CRM records without losing data Field-level merge rules let you control how each value is kept or replaced during a CRM merge. More accurate merges, fewer reviews, and logic you can scale. Gaby Salinas February 12, 2026](https://dedupe.ly/blog/merge-crm-records-without-losing-data) ### Get started for free 20 free trial merges and as much free support as you need to get your duplicates under control. [Talk to sales](https://meetings.dedupe.ly/meetings/gaby-salinas/talk-to-sales)[Try for free](https://v2.app.dedupe.ly/signup) [Or sign up with Google](https://v2.app.dedupe.ly/signup/google) Running CRM cleanup for clients? [See the Partner Program](https://dedupe.ly/become-a-partner) Skip to content