Add many fields in bulk to existing table

Airtable Questions
1

I don’t think it is possible to add field in bulk to an existing table. Is there a way?

The only way I figured out is following steps:

  1. Existing table
  2. Create a CSV (maybe XLS/XLSX will also work), 1st line the header names for the field names I want to have in Airtable and 2nd line put any text (e.g. “x”)
  3. Create new temporary table from the CSV. It creates new fields based on the columns in the CSV,
  4. Now highlight and copy the 1st line record (with the “x”) for all the new fields
  5. Go to the existing table to the right, add new field and from there past the copied data from the temporary table

Now the additional fields have been added in the existing table.

Useful when need to add lots of new fields, rather than adding them manually in Airtable.

Is there any other way to do that?

2

You can create new fields via a script as well. I’m working on a project that needs 150 new fields added to a table; in doing that with a script to keep things orderly

1 Like
3

As @Kamille-Parks mentioned above, this is possible through the scripting API, and it is also available through the web API: Web API - Create Field

4

The copy/paste method works well for creating most editable fields. It is not good for creating linked record fields or computed fields.

As @Kamille-Parks and @ScottWorld pointed out, you can use scripting or the web api. You can also use a custom extension to create new fields. These methods will let you create additional field types that can be difficult to create using the CSV => new table method, such as single/multiple collaborators, linked record fields, and attachment fields.

If you want to create lookup fields in bulk, you can do that by right-clicking the header for the linked record field.

1 Like
5

This is a great little-known trick! :star_struck: