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Flow that checks for duplicates, expression result always false even though condition met

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Posted on by TK-19021613-0

I created a flow that when a new item is created in a list (List A) power automate checks to see if that item is already in another list (List B) and sends an email if the new item created already exists in List B - it is a duplicate. The expression always results in false though. I tested and changed the condition to 'does not equal' and it sends the email so I don't think it is an issue with a data mismatch, whitespace or case sensitivity. Not sure if the issue is with the filter array portion.

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David_MA 12,978 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Based on what I see, your flow may be working but not getting to the record that has the match. If you look at your image with the apply to each action, it shows it processed 100 items. That tells me that more than likely your list contains more than 100 items. By default, the get items action will only return the first 100 items.

To overcome this, you can either enable paging on the get items action to return more than 100 items, or use a filter query in the get items action so it just returns rows that meet your condition. There are a number of online articles about using filter queries, and here is one: Power Automate OData Filter Query with Examples.

I would suggest using the filter query and get rid of the current condition. It is more efficient, and the flow will run faster. Instead, you would use a length expression to determine how many items were returned from the get items action and if it is greater than or equal to 1, then you know it is a duplicate.

If either of your lists will contain over 5,000 items, you should index the columns used in the filter.

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TK-19021613-0 4 on at

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Thank you. I will try this out!

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