Find Near Matches (Fuzzy Match)

When you need it

• Checking a sign-up sheet against a roster. People type their own names: “Jon” for “John”, “Smith, Ann” for “Ann Smith”, “Maria” without the accent. An exact comparison says they’re missing; this finds them.
• Cleaning a mailing list. The same person twice as jon.smith@gmail.com and jonsmith@gmail.com, or a typo like gmial.com or acme.co that will bounce.
• Matching customers, suppliers or donors between two systems, where one says “Acme Inc.” and the other “ACME, Inc”, or last year’s list against this year’s.
• Reconciling product names or record numbers from two exports, like INV-00123 and INV123.

How to use it

1. Paste your list on the left.
2. Paste the list to check it against on the right, or leave that box empty to look for near-duplicates within your own list.
3. Press Find near matches. Each pair says exactly what’s different between the two; Copy results copies them as three columns you can paste into a spreadsheet.

Your lists aren’t changed. The pairs are suggestions: you decide which really are the same. “Bob Lee” and “Rob Lee” look alike but may well be two people.

What counts as a near match

Each pair’s What’s different column names every difference, so you can judge it at a glance:

• Spelling: the letters you’d have to change, add, remove or swap, and how alike the spelling is. “Jon” and “John” are 1 letter apart; “gmial” and “gmail” are 1 swap apart. Longer items can have more differences and still be alike.
• Capitals, accents, punctuation and spaces never stop a match, but they’re always listed: jon.smith@gmail.com and jonsmith@gmail.com differ by punctuation; “María García” and “Maria Garcia” by accents; “Blue Sky Bakery” and “Bluesky Bakery” by spaces.
• Word order is ignored unless you untick it, so “Smith, John” matches “John Smith”.
• Business words (Inc., Ltd., LLC, Co., Corp., The, and) are ignored in names unless you untick it, so “The Acme Co.” matches “Acme”.
• Numbers must match exactly, so “Room 101” and “Room 102”, or order 1001 and 1002, are never treated as typos. Leading zeros don’t count: INV-00123 matches INV123.

Items that match exactly are left out, because they aren’t in doubt: use Compare two lists for those, or Remove duplicates for exact repeats in one list. How alike sets how much spelling may differ: very close (90% of the letters the same) shows only small typos, loosely (70%) shows more possible matches to check by eye.

Your lists never leave your computer: everything happens in your browser.

Who on the sign-up sheet is on the class list?

Jon Smith
María García
Smith, Ann
Priya Patel
Liam O'Brien

John Smith
Maria Garcia
Ann Smith
Priya Patel
Liam OBrien
Noah Kim

Jon Smith ≈ John Smith · spelling: 1 letter (88%)
María García ≈ Maria Garcia · accents
Smith, Ann ≈ Ann Smith · word order, punctuation
Liam O'Brien ≈ Liam OBrien · punctuation

Try this example

Typos in one mailing list (second box left empty)

jon.smith@gmail.com
amy@acme.com
jonsmith@gmail.com
bob@acme.com
jon.smith@gmial.com
amy@acme.co

(left empty)

jon.smith@gmail.com ≈ jonsmith@gmail.com · punctuation
jon.smith@gmail.com ≈ jon.smith@gmial.com · spelling: 1 letter (93%)
amy@acme.com ≈ amy@acme.co · spelling: 1 letter (90%)
jonsmith@gmail.com ≈ jon.smith@gmial.com · spelling: 1 letter (93%), punctuation

Try this example

The same customers in two systems

Acme Inc.
Blue Sky Bakery
Northwind Traders Ltd.
Contoso Pharmaceuticals
Room 101 Supplies

ACME, Inc
Bluesky Bakery
Northwind Traders
Contoso Pharmaceutical
Room 102 Supplies
Fabrikam

Acme Inc. ≈ ACME, Inc · capitals, punctuation
Blue Sky Bakery ≈ Bluesky Bakery · spaces
Northwind Traders Ltd. ≈ Northwind Traders · Inc./Ltd. words
Contoso Pharmaceuticals ≈ Contoso Pharmaceutical · spelling: 1 letter (95%)

Try this example