Why does Salesforce for Outlook (Retiring) create duplicate records in Microsoft® Outlook®?

Important Full product retirement for Salesforce for Outlook is scheduled for December 2027. See Salesforce for Outlook Retirement. To keep integrating Microsoft Outlook with Salesforce, check out our next-generation products: the Outlook integration and Einstein Activity Capture. See Move from Salesforce for Outlook (Retiring) to the Next-Generation Products.

Duplicate records can be created if you have Salesforce items that contain the same information as the Outlook items you either marked as Private or assigned to the category Don't Sync with Salesforce. These items were never mapped to each other, so Salesforce for Outlook treats them separately, resulting in duplicates.

If you want to remove duplicates, it's best to remove the ones in Outlook that you either marked as Private or assigned to the Outlook category Don't Sync with Salesforce. Removing the duplicates in Outlook ensures that you don't delete information in Salesforce to which other users have contributed.