Google Sheets to Airtable - removing duplicate entires

How To
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Having a heck of a time here. I’m building an automation that imports Google Sheet data into Airtable. This will be a weekly automation so I need it to recognize duplicate entries when it sees them and not import them into Airtable. I had hoped to achieve this in Make with a filter, but I’ve tried it over and over again and it’s not working. Seems like it should be an easy solution, but I’m struggling.

Any recommendations on what I should try or what I may be missing? If I can’t figure this out, next step is to try to get Airtable to recognize the dups and catch them there.

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Hey @David_Maiolo,

I would recommend searching for a record in Airtable and depending on if the result is found or not routing the workflow accordingly. If not found, you could use a router to “Create a record” in Airtable and if found the router will stop the scenario.

So to answer your original question, I would use a router not a filter.

Hope this helps!

-@Trainward_Consulting

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Hey David,

are the duplicates in the sheet or in Airtable? If they are in Airtable, then search it first to see if the record exists and only create it if it doesn’t. If its in the sheet, then clean up the incoming data first and remove the duplicates from there.

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Hey @David_Maiolo,

Here are a few things you can try to prevent duplicates when importing Google Sheet data into Airtable with Make:

1. Add a “Processed” column in Google Sheets
After a row is successfully imported into Airtable, have Make update a column in the sheet (like “Imported” or a timestamp). Then use a filter in Make to skip any rows that already have a value in that column.

2. Use an Airtable “Search Records” step before creating new entries
Before the “Create Record” step in Make, add a search step that checks Airtable for an existing entry using a unique identifier (like an email or ID). If it finds a match, use a filter to skip creation.

3. Handle duplicates in Airtable if they still get through
You can set up an automation to identify duplicates and flag them using a checkbox or single-select field. Airtable also has a helpful Dedupe Extension you can use to review and merge duplicate records.

Bonus: Clean up existing data first

  • In Google Sheets: Use Data > Data cleanup > Remove duplicates to clean up your existing dataset before automating.
  • In Airtable: Try the Dedupe Extension to catch and merge current duplicates before setting up your automation.

Let me know what part you’re stuck on and happy to help troubleshoot it more!

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Creating a router instead of a filter solved the issue, though I’m surprised it is necessary to do this. It seems blocking duplicates should be a straight-forward operation rather than requiring a work-around. In any case, thanks for your help.

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Thanks for these solutions. I had already tried a couple, but some where new. I eventually ended up creating a router instead of using a filter. It worked, though still having some other issues, which I don’t think (but not sure either) are being caused by the router solution. In any case, I really appreciate your thoughtful response.