People and merges
Join the different spellings of the same person or organization into one, review the app's suggested merges, merge by hand, and undo a merge.
#Why merges matter
In a big case one person is written a dozen ways: Daniel Reeves, D. Reeves, Dan, Daniel Reeves <dreeves@…>, and a scanning slip like Danlel Reeves. Until they're merged, the app treats each spelling as a different person. Their documents, e-mails and connections get split between them, which makes the Graph and Connections screens less useful and an agent's counts less accurate.
The People screen is where you fix that. It's also the only place it can be done: your AI agent can point out two spellings that look like one person, but it can't merge them.
#Suggested merges
The app looks for names that are probably the same person or organization and lists them under Suggested merges, sorted by how sure it is:
| Level | What it means |
|---|---|
| Certain | The same name with extra text, or the same e-mail address. |
| Likely | A near spelling, a name with words after it, a first name that fits one person. |
| Possible | Looser: check the documents before merging. |
Pick a level to see its suggestions. Each card shows:
- the confidence and the reason (for example Same e-mail address, Near spelling, Stray letter in front, Name with other words);
- the two sides: Merge this name into that one. Each side shows how many documents and passages name it, the other ways it is Also written, and the IDs of a few documents where it appears (click one to open it);
- two buttons: Same person (or Same organization) and Different.
Same person merges them. Different dismisses the suggestion so it isn't suggested again.
#Merge all certain pairs
When there are certain pairs, a Merge all N certain button appears. It asks you to confirm, then merges every one. Each merge is still listed under Merges made and can be undone individually.
Show more loads more suggestions when the list is long.
#Merge by hand
If the app didn't suggest a pair you know is one person:
- Under Merge by hand, pick a name in This name.
- Pick the other in is the same as.
- Click Merge these two, then confirm.
#Undoing a merge
Every merge is listed under Merges made, as this name merged into that name. Click Undo on any of them to split them again. Undone merges stay in the list, marked Undone.
#What happens after a merge
The text that names the merged spellings is updated and indexed again so that search finds them together. While that happens, People shows a note such as 12 files are being indexed again so search finds the merged names together. You can keep working.
After merging:
- A search for the person finds every spelling.
- The Graph shows one node instead of several.
- Connections studies count them as one. Run a study again (Look again) to update it.
- Your agent sees the merged person in its counts and connections.
Merging never changes your original files. It only changes how the app groups names.