Cannot find duplicates

Are you having problems with EndNote not finding duplicates – but you do?

EndNote compares the fields of information within references (metadata) to find duplicates. Therefore, it is important that the fields have the right information in the right place and form. The default setting is to compare author, year, title and reference type.

This information can be found, and changed, in the EndNote desktop version via the tab Edit -> Preferences... -> Duplicates (Windows) or EndNote 2025 ->  Settings... -> Duplicates (Mac).

1. Test to tick the box for DOI to add a comparison in that field. DOI stands for Digital Object Identifier and work as a unique link to a specific scientific article.
2. If it did not help with DOI, try to tick off the box for Author. If you have collected references from several different databases, some references may contain middle names, initials only or other variations of the authors names, which in turn creates differences in duplicate comparisons. The differences might be why EndNote do not acknowledge them as one and the same reference.