Can Incorrectly Merged Profiles Be Unmerged?
Can profiles that have been incorrectly merged be unmerged? An incorrect anonymous id was sent through with some events that have resulted in profiles being joined that shouldn’t be
Can profiles that have been incorrectly merged be unmerged? An incorrect anonymous id was sent through with some events that have resulted in profiles being joined that shouldn’t be
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No, profiles that have been incorrectly merged cannot be unmerged. Merging identities in Mixpanel is an irreversible action. Once a $merge event has been processed, you cannot unmerge the distinct_ids. This is a deliberate design choice to prevent data inconsistencies and is clearly stated in the documentation: “You cannot unmerge distinct_id” and “Merging identities is irreversible” Merge Identities.
If an incorrect anonymous ID was merged with another profile, unfortunately, there is no supported way to separate them after the merge. You may need to review your implementation to prevent this from happening in the future.
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kapa.ai we did not merge the profile but rather other users profile have been included in one profile under the canonical Id
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I'm sorry to hear about the issue. According to the Mixpanel documentation, once profiles (IDs) have been merged into a single identity cluster—whether by explicit merge events or by sending events with both a $device_id and $user_id—this action is irreversible. There is no supported way to "unmerge" or split profiles that have been joined together, even if the merge was unintentional or caused by an incorrect anonymous ID being associated with a user. This applies to both the Original and Simplified ID Merge systems.
The documentation states that merging is a one-way operation and cannot be undone. If an incorrect anonymous ID was included and caused multiple users' profiles to be joined under one canonical ID, there is no built-in method to separate them again. The best course of action is to review and update your implementation to prevent further incorrect merges, and to document your ID management approach for future troubleshooting Understanding Simplified ID Merge Best Practices.
If you need to correct historical data, you may need to consider creating a new project and re-importing your data with the correct identity mappings, but this is a significant undertaking and not a standard workflow.
If you have further questions or need help preventing this in the future, let me know!
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