# Problem importing contacts

**URL:** <https://community.hubspot.com/t/problem-importing-contacts/73484>\
**Category:** Account & Settings\
**Created:** [January 23, 2023, 11:12am UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/problem-importing-contacts/73484 "2023-01-23T11:12:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ABel7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@ABel7](https://community.hubspot.com/u/ABel7)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2023, 11:12am UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/problem-importing-contacts/73484/1 "2023-01-23T11:12:25Z")

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Hi there,

I imported a list of contacts from an excel sheet and I faced 2 problems:

1° Not all contacts of the list were imported

2° When I tried to import a second time the same list to check if it would work out, it didn’t had the missng contacts, but moreover it dupplicated the existant contacts I just imported.

Can you help me please?

Thanks in advance

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**Author:** ![karstenkoehler](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/karstenkoehler/32/68554_2.png) [@karstenkoehler](https://community.hubspot.com/u/karstenkoehler)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2023, 11:18am UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/problem-importing-contacts/73484/2 "2023-01-23T11:18:02Z")

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Hi @ABel7,

Have you reviewed the first import and checked whether there were errors? If so, which errors are you seeing? [Review and troubleshoot record import errors](https://knowledge.hubspot.com/crm-setup/troubleshoot-import-errors)

Generally, HubSpot needs either a _Contact ID_ or an _Email_ in the import file. If that is not available, HubSpot will not deduplicate a contact. It will assume that each contact is a new contact.

Does every contact in your import file have a valid email address?

Best regards!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ABel7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@ABel7](https://community.hubspot.com/u/ABel7)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2023, 11:26am UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/problem-importing-contacts/73484/3 "2023-01-23T11:26:19Z")

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I had no errors while importing, but could it be that I have multiple emial adresses for some of the contacts (that were of course in teh same row) ?

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**Author:** ![franksteiner79](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/franksteiner79/32/34443_2.png) [@franksteiner79](https://community.hubspot.com/u/franksteiner79)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2023, 8:20pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/problem-importing-contacts/73484/4 "2023-01-23T20:20:54Z")

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Hi @ABel7

Can you share a screenshot of your import overview/history?

It should look something like that:

 ![Screenshot 2023-01-23 at 21.16.14.png](https://d2qpr2jzcazej7.cloudfront.net/original/2X/c/c0299df0cd7b3a68af21c84f1938b77aea99fed3.png)

HubSpot deduplicates by email, so wouldn’t create duplicate records with the same email. If a record already exists, it simply gets updated with new information.

I hope that helps.

Frank

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ABel7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@ABel7](https://community.hubspot.com/u/ABel7)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2023, 11:28am UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/problem-importing-contacts/73484/5 "2023-01-23T11:28:27Z")

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Also, is contact ID the firstname and lastname?

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**Author:** ![karstenkoehler](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/karstenkoehler/32/68554_2.png) [@karstenkoehler](https://community.hubspot.com/u/karstenkoehler)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2023, 12:04pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/problem-importing-contacts/73484/6 "2023-01-23T12:04:52Z")

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Hi @ABel7,

No, the contact ID is a number that is generated in HubSpot when a contact is created.

‘I had no errors while importing, but could it be that I have multiple emial adresses for some of the contacts (that were of course in teh same row) ?’

HubSpot expects one (not more) email addresses in the _Email_ field. If you’re importing email addresses into another field, HubSpot will create duplicates.

Are you 100% sure there aren’t any import errors (_Menu_ \> _Contacts_ \> _Contacts_ \> _Import_ \> scroll down)? If there weren’t any, HubSpot should’ve imported all contacts.

Best regards!