I’m dealing with a table that contains various items, and here’s how it looks:
Item | Weight | Color
1 Lemon | 1.2 | Yellow
2 Grape | 0.5 | Purple
3 Peach | 2.0 | Pink
I’d like to have a view that only displays the very first item:
Lemon | 1.2 | Yellow
The challenge is that whenever I make changes to the table, like adding new entries or re-sorting, I want this view to automatically show the updated top entry.
For example, if I sort the table based on weight and see:
Item | Weight | Color
1 Grape | 0.5 | Purple
2 Lemon | 1.2 | Yellow
3 Peach | 2.0 | Pink
My view should reflect:
Grape | 0.5 | Purple
I’ve searched for answers but haven’t found anything useful. Some people mentioned using record IDs or creation times, but that approach doesn’t work well when the order of the table changes. I also explored potential functions to limit results, but they don’t seem available in Airtable.
Can someone provide guidance on whether this is achievable?
i hear ya! Airtable doesn’t do this natively for showing just the top row, but maybe check out using Zapier or some automation to make a new entry for the first item whenever your data changes. it ain’t ideal but might help!
Nope, Airtable can’t do this directly. There’s no built-in filtering that’ll show just the top record based on your sort criteria. But here’s a workaround that works pretty well: create a separate single-record table and use a script to keep it updated. Set up automation so whenever your main table changes, the script finds the first record from your current sort and copies it over to the display table. It takes some technical setup, but you’ll get exactly what you want - a view that always shows the current top entry no matter how you sort your main data. You’ll need to handle the sorting logic in JavaScript, but it’s totally doable if you’re comfortable with Airtable’s scripting.
Nope, Airtable doesn’t have a built-in way to show just the first row of a view. There’s no LIMIT or TOP function to grab a single record based on your sorting.
You could try making a formula field that flags the top record, then filter to only show records where that formula is true. But this gets messy and doesn’t work reliably with different sorting setups.
Another option is using linked tables where you manually point to your “first” record - though you’d need to update this every time your data changes.
Honestly, aroberts’ automation idea is probably your best bet for something that actually works dynamically.
I’ve dealt with this exact problem. Airtable doesn’t have a built-in first-row-only feature, but I found a workaround using automations that works great.
Make a separate “Top Item” table with the same fields as your main table. Set up an automation that fires when records get added, updated, or deleted in your main table.
The automation:
- Pulls all records from your main table
- Sorts them however you want (weight, alphabetical, etc.)
- Grabs the first record’s data
- Updates or creates a record in your “Top Item” table
I’ve done this for dashboards where we needed to show the highest priority ticket or latest deployment. Updates instantly when your data changes.
The script’s pretty simple if you know basic JavaScript - just handle the sorting and map fields between tables.
You get that dynamic first-row view that updates automatically, no matter how you shuffle your main table.
