I’m building an app that syncs Airtable data to my local database. I’m using Go with an Airtable library to fetch records.
The problem is that when I pull records from Airtable, I only get the record ID, field values, and creation timestamp. There’s no built-in way to tell if a record was edited after it was created.
I thought about adding a “Last modified time” field to track changes, but you can’t create those fields through the API. You have to manually add them in the Airtable interface which isn’t practical for my use case.
Webhooks could work but I’d rather avoid that approach if possible.
Does anyone know if there’s a way to get modification timestamps or any other indicator that shows when records were last changed? I need something that works through the API without requiring manual setup in the Airtable interface.
I hit this same problem six months ago and solved it with a hash-based approach that’s worked great. I calculate a SHA-256 hash of all field values for each record and store it with the record ID in my local database. During syncs, I fetch the Airtable records, calculate the hash again, and compare it with what’s stored. If they don’t match, the record changed. This catches any field changes without needing modification timestamps. Only downside is you have to process all records each sync, but it’s been rock solid for detecting changes across thousands of records.
We hit this same issue building our CRM sync. Skip hashing or checksums - we used timestamp-based polling and it works great.
Store your last sync timestamp and use Airtable’s filterByFormula with a formula checking if any field changed after your last sync. Combine DATETIME_DIFF with field comparisons.
You’ll need previous values, so we keep a lightweight cache of key fields. But you’re only pulling records that actually changed instead of everything.
Also try tracking record order changes between syncs. Airtable sometimes reorders records when they’re edited, so you can spot updates that way.
Not as clean as real modification timestamps, but it massively cuts API calls vs processing every record each time.
I’ve had good luck with comparison-based sync using field-level checksums. Instead of hashing whole records, I create checksums for each field and keep a local snapshot table. When syncing, I compare field checksums instead of full records - this way I know exactly which fields changed and don’t waste time on unnecessary updates. Performance is way better since you’re only touching what actually changed. I also batch the records in chunks and process them async. This setup has handled 10k+ records without breaking a sweat, and I didn’t need to modify the Airtable interface at all.
Just use Airtable’s built-in last modified field. You can add it programmatically through their metadata API even though the main records API doesn’t support it. We figured this out last month - way cleaner than hashing workarounds. Check the schema/bases endpoint. You can create formula fields that track edits without touching the UI.