Update database properties

The API represents columns of a database in the Notion UI as database properties.

To use the API to update a database’s properties, send a PATCH request with a properties body param.

Remove a property

To remove a database property, set the property object to null.

"properties": {
  "J@cT": null,
}

"properties": {
  "propertyToDelete": null
}

Rename a property

To change the name of a database property, indicate the new name in the name property object value.

"properties": {
	"J@cT": {
		"name": "New Property Name"
  }
}

"properties": {
  "Old Property Name": {
    "name": "New Property Name
  }
}

Update property type

To update the property type, the property schema object should contain the key of the type. This type contains behavior of this property. Possible values of this key are "title", "rich_text", "number", "select", "multi_select", "date", "people", "files", "checkbox", "url", "email", "phone_number", "formula", "relation", "rollup", "created_time", "created_by", "last_edited_time", "last_edited_by". Within this property, the configuration is a property schema object.

❗️

Limitations

Note that the property type of the title cannot be changed.

It's not possible to update the name or options values of a status property via the API.

Select configuration updates

To update an existing select configuration, the property schema object optionally contains the following configuration within the select property:

Existing select options

Note that the name and color of an existing option cannot be updated.

Multi-select configuration updates

To update an existing select configuration, the property schema object optionally contains the following configuration within the multi_select property:

Existing multi-select options

Note that the name and color of an existing option cannot be updated.

Limitations

Formula maximum depth

Formulas in Notion can have high levels of complexity beyond what the API can compute in a single request. For formula property values that exceed have or exceed depth of 10 referenced tables, the API will return a "Formula depth" error as a "validation_error"

As a workaround, you can retrieve the formula property object from the Retrieve a Database endpoint and use the formula expression to compute the value of more complex formulas.

Unsupported Rollup Aggregations

Due to the encoded cursor nature of computing rollup values, a subset of aggregation types are not supported. Instead the endpoint returns a list of all property_item objects for the following rollup aggregations:

• show_unique (Show unique values)
• unique (Count unique values)
• median (Median)

Could not find page/database Error

A page property of type rollup and formula can involve computing a value based on the properties in another relation page. As such the integration needs permissions to the other relation page. If the integration doesn't have permissions page needed to compute the property value, the API will return a "object_not_found" error specifying the page the integration lacks permissions to.

Property value doesn't match UI after pagination

If a property value involves pagination and the underlying properties or pages used to compute the property value change whilst the integration is paginating through results, the final value will impacted and is not guaranteed to be accurate.