How to find and merge duplicate contacts in Clio Manage

The short answer

Clio Manage has a bulk operation that removes identical duplicates. Its help centre says that duplicates linked to matters, related matters, employees, transactions, notes or communications stay in your account, and that you can combine those records manually instead. So the duplicates that matter most, the ones with work attached, are a manual job or a job for a tool.

Option 1: Remove Duplicate Contacts

Clio's article Edit and Delete Contacts describes the bulk operations tool, which administrators and the primary subscriber can use.

1. Log in to Clio Manage as an administrator and open the bulk operations page for your region (the article links the US, EU and Canada pages).
2. Click Add and select Remove Duplicate Contacts. Optionally select Exclude clients to keep contacts that have matters.
3. Click Generate Preview and wait for the state to change to Preview Completed, then click Preview and review the entries listed for deletion.
4. Click Confirm Deletion, then Perform Operation, and OK in the warning window.

Read the preview carefully. Clio says contacts removed with the bulk operations tool stay deleted: the Recovery Bin does not keep them.

Option 2: find them yourself and combine by hand

1. Get the list out. Following Filter and Export Contacts, click Contacts, scroll to the bottom, click Export and choose CSV. Sort the file by email, phone and last name to spot pairs. Inside Clio, the Filter by keyword field matches whole keywords, so a search for Liz does not bring up Elizabeth.
2. Pick the record to keep.
3. Move the matters. The matter form, which reopens through Edit matter, holds the matter's client (see Create Matters). Open each matter of the duplicate and set the record you keep as its client.
4. Copy the details. Open the kept record with Edit contact and add any email, phone or address that only the duplicate had.
5. Delete the duplicate. Open it, click Edit contact, then Delete contact, and confirm.

Do step 5 last. Clio says deleting a contact releases its notes, client portal and Clio for Co-Counsel access, while bills, matters, transactions and payments stay in Clio Manage without a contact attached. A contact deleted this way can be restored from Settings > Recovery Bin for six months, but Recover Deleted Contacts warns that it may come back with some information missing, such as custom fields, billing preferences, matters and notes.

Where these stop

• The bulk tool handles identical duplicates only. Liz and Elizabeth, or a phone number with and without the country code, are not identical.
• By hand, every pair means a spreadsheet search, several matters to edit, details to copy and notes that do not move by themselves.
• Nothing records what you moved, so undoing a wrong merge means rebuilding it from memory.

Option 3: Tidyroll

Tidyroll is a web app made by Atesen Software for law firms on Clio Manage. You connect through Clio's own sign-in and run a free, read-only scan; nothing in Clio changes until you confirm a merge.

• Finds what exact matching misses. Every contact is compared by email, phone in international format, names with nicknames and initials, company names without LLC or Inc, and addresses. Each group of likely duplicates shows why it matched.
• You choose, then confirm. You pick the record to keep and the value of each field, read a plan of every matter, relationship, note and document that moves, and type a confirmation such as MERGE 12. Nothing merges automatically.
• Nothing deleted, 30-day undo. The duplicate stays with a note saying where everything went. Every change is journaled and read back from Clio, and a single merge or a whole run can be undone for 30 days.
• Blocked when it is not safe. A merge stops when the duplicate has bills, trust or bank transactions, credit memos, Clio Payments, a balance, or client portal or co-counsel access. Different first names, Sr. or Jr., or dates of birth stop a match even at the same address.

Good to know. Tidyroll works only with Clio Manage accounts in Clio's US region (app.clio.com) today; the Canada, Europe / UK and Australia regions are not open yet. It needs a Clio Manage plan that includes apps and integrations (API access). It is not in the Clio App Directory, and Clio has not reviewed it. It is a data clean-up tool, not legal advice: you decide which records are the same client.

Price. The scan is free and shows duplicate counts with 3 sample groups. A Cleanup Pass is $199 once for 90 days of one Clio account; Monitor is $29 a month for a weekly re-scan, bulk edit and 50 merges a month. Checkout is by Paddle on Tidyroll's own site.

About Tidyroll Run a free scan on its own site

Which route fits

• Exact copies with nothing attached: Remove Duplicate Contacts, after a careful look at the preview.
• A handful of pairs with matters: combine them by hand, moving matters before you delete.
• Hundreds of contacts, near-matches, or a need to undo: a tool that shows its reasons and keeps a journal, such as Tidyroll if your firm signs in to app.clio.com.

Atesen Software is independent. Clio is a trademark of Themis Solutions Inc., and this page is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Clio. Clio help centre articles were checked on 17 October 2026; menus and plans can change.

Questions about this guide: support@atesensoftware.com.