Find duplicate records in MySQL

Find duplicate users by email address with this query...

SELECT users.name, users.uid, users.mail, from_unixtime(created)
FROM users
INNER JOIN (
  SELECT mail
  FROM users
  GROUP BY mail
  HAVING count(mail) > 1
) dupes ON users.mail = dupes.mail
ORDER BY users.mail;

Finding duplicate addresses is much more complex than it seems, especially if you require accuracy. A MySQL query is not enough in this case...

I work at SmartyStreets, where we do address validation and de-duplication and other stuff, and I've seen a lot of diverse challenges with similar problems.

There are several third-party services which will flag duplicates in a list for you. Doing this solely with a MySQL subquery will not account for differences in address formats and standards. The USPS (for US address) has certain guidelines to make these standard, but only a handful of vendors are certified to perform such operations.

So, I would recommend the best answer for you is to export the table into a CSV file, for instance, and submit it to a capable list processor. One such is LiveAddress which will have it done for you in a few seconds to a few minutes automatically. It will flag duplicate rows with a new field called "Duplicate" and a value of Y in it.

Another solution would be to use table aliases, like so:

SELECT p1.id, p2.id, p1.address
FROM list AS p1, list AS p2
WHERE p1.address = p2.address
AND p1.id != p2.id

All you're really doing in this case is taking the original list table, creating two pretend tables -- p1 and p2 -- out of that, and then performing a join on the address column (line 3). The 4th line makes sure that the same record doesn't show up multiple times in your set of results ("duplicate duplicates").