Gallery
Kuovonne's Guide to Scripting in Airtable
Share
Explore
Gallery
Kuovonne's Guide to Scripting in Airtable
Kuovonne's Guide to Scripting in Airtable

icon picker
Object IDs in Airtable

⁠
Tip Jar
⁠
Your donations tell Kuovonne that you value her content and want her to continue publishing.
⁠
Every table, view, field, record, automation, interface, user, and more in Airtable has an Airtable ID. This is typically a three letter prefix that identifies the type of object, followed by 14 alphanumeric characters that identify the specific object.
When using Airtable, you rarely ever need to access these internal IDs. However, sometimes it is useful to know these ids, such as when working with scripting and prefilling forms.
General tips:
Whenever you duplicate a base, all of the internal Airtable IDs also change!
These IDs are also available in third party tools and scripts that expose schema information.
⁠

Record ID

Prefix: rec
Ways to find it:
Create a formula field with the formula RECORD_ID()
Look in the url of the browser when a record is open in the expanded view
Available in an automation when the record is a triggering record or a found record
Get it through scripting
Tips:
Do not confuse this with the primary field value of a record, or with any fields that you may be named “id”.
Useful when prefilling a linked record field where the primary field value might change or might not be unique
Useful when working with a third party integration source that will need to get a particular record
Essential to understand if you work with scripts
Guaranteed to be unique across a table, and probably is unique across a base.
Except for the convoluted method for getting a table ID, this is the only ID available through formula fields.
⁠

Table ID

Prefix: tbl
Ways to find it:
Look in the url when the table is open
Get it through scripting
Look at the API documentation for the table
Create a formula field based on a button field that opens an extension, such as Page Designer, that is configured for that table.
Tips:
Useful when writing code where the table name might change
Useful when generating urls for records
⁠

View ID

Prefix: viw
Ways to find it:
Look in the url when the view is open
Get it through scripting
Look at the API documentation for the table
Tips:
Useful when writing code where the view name might change
Optional when generating urls for records
A form view has both a view ID and a share ID. The url for publishing the form is the share ID, not the view ID.
⁠

Field ID

Prefix: fld
Ways to find it:
Get it from the “Manage Fields” tool for the table. You may need to unhide it".
Get it from the url for a specific field. (Right-click the field name, and select “Copy field URL”)
Get it from the url for a specific cell. (Right-click the cell, and select “Copy cell URL”)
Get it through scripting
Look at the API documentation for the table
Use my “
Field List
⁠
” extension
Tips:
Useful when prefilling forms where the field name might change
Useful when writing code where the field name might change
Useful when debugging scripts
⁠

Other IDs

Other internal IDs are not used as frequently and I do not have time to write them up now.
Additional abbreviations:
base ID prefix: app
user ID prefix: usr
workspace ID prefix: wsp
automation ID prefix: wfl
automation trigger ID prefix: wtr
automation action ID prefix: wac
interface ID prefix: pag
Note that elements within an Interface can be found in the url when the element is selected. However, these interface element IDs do not follow the same format as other IDs. They do not have a consistent three letter prefix and they are much shorter than 14 alphanumeric characters.
⁠
The content in this guide is free, but creating it takes time and money. If you like this content,
buy Kuovonne a sandwich
⁠
.
⁠

Gallery
Share
 
Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.
Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (
CtrlP
) instead.