Finding and merging duplicate items
How PalmFlow finds items that look like the same thing recorded twice, and how to archive or merge them without losing history.
Cleanup is a review tool that finds items in your inventory that look like the same physical thing recorded more than once. It runs when you open it, groups what it finds, and changes nothing on its own.
Find it at Workspace settings → Cleanup.
How it decides
Three signals, in descending order of confidence:
- 1Same marketplace listing — two items pointing at one live listing. This is almost always a genuine duplicate.
- 2Same SKU — two items sharing an identifier that is supposed to be unique. Also very likely a duplicate.
- 3Same name, brand, and model — a fingerprint match. Weaker, because it is also exactly what a legitimate restock looks like: two of the same jacket bought on different days are two items, not one recorded twice.
That third signal is why nothing is merged automatically. Only you know whether you have one item entered twice or genuinely two of them.
Archiving versus merging
- Archive extras takes the duplicates out of your active counts while keeping them in the database. Reversible, and available on every plan.
- Merge combines a group into a single item, keeping the oldest as the one that survives so its history stays intact. Merging is an Ultra feature, and it cannot be undone — check the group before you confirm.
Avoiding them in the first place
Most duplicates arrive through imports rather than typing. The importer skips rows whose SKU already exists, so giving your items SKUs before you import is the single most effective thing you can do — see Importing your existing records.
Common questions
Does PalmFlow detect duplicate inventory items?
PalmFlow finds duplicates after the fact, not as you type. The Cleanup tool in workspace settings groups items that share a marketplace listing, a SKU, or the same name, brand, and model, and you decide what to do with each group.