Help Deleting Duplicates (1 Viewer)

[sb8s]

I have a database with about 10,000 records, 600 or so of which are duplicates. I want to delete not only the duplicate for each, but also the original. In other words, if John Smith appears twice in the database, I want to delete him from the database entirely. Is there any way to do this without identifying the duplicates and deleting both instances manually?

I know how to append only unique records to a new table, but that only gets rid of the duplicates (second, third, fourth instances, etc.) for each record.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Pat Hartman]

Create a find duplicates query - use the wizard. Then create a delete query that uses the find duplicates query rather than a table.

BTW, this query will only be updateable if each record has a unique identifier. If the table does not already have a unique primary key, you may have to make one by adding an autonumber column. Once you have eliminated the duplicates, you can delete the autonumber column. But, you might want to keep it since EVERY table should contain a unique primary key.