How to query Airtable multiselect fields to find records containing specific values along with other entries?

Other Questions Airtable
1

I’m working with Airtable’s API and trying to use the filterByFormula function to find records in a multiselect field. My current approach only finds records that match exactly one value, but I need to find records that contain my target value even when other values are present in the same field.

Here’s what I’m currently using:

database('MyTable').select({
    view: 'Primary View',
    filterByFormula: `FieldName = "${searchTerm}"`
}).firstPage(function(error, data) {
    if (error) { console.error(error); return; }

    data.forEach(function(item) {
        console.log(item.get('Description'));
    });
});

This code works fine when the multiselect field contains only my searchTerm, but it doesn’t return records where searchTerm appears alongside other selected options. I need a way to check if the field contains my target string as one of multiple possible values.

How can I modify the formula to search within multiselect fields properly?

2

Hit this same issue 2 years ago building a project management tool. Multiselect fields store values as comma-separated strings internally.

Use ARRAYJOIN and FIND together:

filterByFormula: `FIND("${searchTerm}", ARRAYJOIN({FieldName}, ",")) > 0`

This converts the multiselect array into a searchable string and finds your term anywhere in it. Much more reliable than SEARCH or FIND by themselves.

Watch out though - your searchTerm might accidentally match parts of other options. Searching for “Dev” could match “Development” when you only want “Dev Team”.

I validate the exact option names first, then use this formula. Saves tons of debugging time.

3

This is a frequent challenge encountered with Airtable’s multiselect fields. The equals operator treats the entire field as a single string, which only matches exact entries. A better approach is to utilize the FIND() function in your filterByFormula. Modify it to: filterByFormula: FIND("${searchTerm}", {FieldName}).

The FIND() function will look for the specified string within the multiselect entries and provides a position where it occurs or returns an error if not found. This ensures that any record containing your search term, regardless of other selected options, will be retrieved. In my experience with filtering records representing skill sets, this function has proven effective, but ensure your searchTerm aligns perfectly with the values in Airtable, paying attention to details like spacing and capitalization.

4

Here’s another approach that’s worked well for me - use the OR function with FIND when you need to search for multiple values. Great for handling variations or matching several options at once. The formula looks like: filterByFormula: "OR(FIND('searchTerm1', {FieldName}), FIND('searchTerm2', {FieldName}))". I found this while building a resource allocation system where team members had overlapping skills. The big advantage? It returns records even when FIND fails for one term but works for another. Your whole query won’t crash just because some records don’t contain all your search terms. Quick tip from experience - always test your queries with real data first. Multiselect behavior can be weird depending on how users originally filled those fields.

5

use SEARCH instead of equals for multiselect fields - it works way better. try filterByFormula: "SEARCH('{searchTerm}', {FieldName}) > 0". don’t forget the curly braces around your search term since that’s how airtable stores multiselect values internally.