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How does the add-only mode work?

I want to allow users to create new records, but not see their previously submitted records.

Updated over 2 months ago

By default, when updating a record, existing data in the field are visible and can be edited. This feature allows you to prevent users from seeing existing data (cell values will be hidden and the field always starts empty) but at the same time, new values are still allowed to be added.

💡Supported fields

This option is available for some field types. Linked records, long text, & attachments. To find it go to

  1. The field settings

  2. Advanced

  3. Turn on Add-only mode.

Attachment Field

By enabling the Show existing values toggle, you can choose to display the existing files in the field while using the add-only mode. This option enables you to view the files that are already present, but it prevents you from deleting them.

Use case example

Allowing employees to add new notes/comments to a record without being to able to edit the existing notes.

Using attachment fields with add-only mode in a grid view

Attachment fields that have add-only mode turned on will disappear from any grid view. This is a known limitation at the moment. To work around this limitation, you can do the following:

  1. Create a linked record field in your table, pointing to itself

  2. Create a lookup field for this self-linked record field which points to your attachment field

  3. Link all existing records to themselves. You can use this automation for this task if your primary field values are unique. Otherwise, you can use an Airtable automation to achieve this.

  4. Add your new lookup field to the grid, but not to the expanding form. This way, the lookup field will show the existing attachments on the grid in a read-only manner, while the actual attachment field using add-only mode is visible on the expanding form, allowing your users to add new attachments.

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