“YNAB imported the same transactions again”
YNAB is good at spotting repeats, which makes it more surprising when duplicates get through. Its matching depends on values that bank exports do not always keep stable between downloads.
Symptoms
Transactions you already approved reappear as new Duplicates concentrate around a particular date range The amounts and payees match exactly
What actually causes it
Matching runs on a limited window
Duplicate detection compares against a recent range of existing transactions. Importing older history falls outside that window, so entries you already have are not recognised.
The payee text changed between downloads
Matching uses date, amount and payee together. A bank that reformats its descriptions between exports breaks the third element, and a transaction that is identical in substance no longer matches.
The same period was downloaded twice
Overlapping ranges give the importer two copies to reconcile, and anything its matcher misses becomes a duplicate rather than an update.
How to fix it
- Drop the file into the checker below to see the exact date range and transaction count before importing — that alone prevents most overlap.
- Import ranges that begin the day after your last import rather than overlapping for safety.
- For older history, expect to remove duplicates by hand; the matching window is a design limit rather than a defect.
- Where payee text keeps changing, matching on date and amount during review is more reliable than trusting the automatic pass.
Related import problems
Skip the manual edit — fix it automatically
Knowing the file's exact date range before importing is the cheapest way to avoid the overlap that creates duplicates. Free, no signup, no upload.
Open the fixer