I’ve compiled together a list of the most useful Notion features that I believe everyone should know about, plus some of the most useful Notion hacks to get you by in a pinch. Bookmark this page for future reference!
Useful Notion Features
Update a property on multiple records in bulk
You can edit a single property on multiple records by dragging to highlight the records, right-click, and “Edit Property”. Then choose the property, edit the value, and watch all of your records update at once!
Paste values from spreadsheet into a database table
Sometimes you have some data in a spreadsheet that you need to transcribe into Notion. Instead of transcribing the data manually, try this time-saving method!
- Highlight the cells of data in the spreadsheet
- Copy the data
- Highlight the same number of “cells” in your Notion database table
- Paste
Even if there is already data in the database table, it will be overwritten.
Alternatively, you can use a similar method to paste data and create new rows in your database! This works great for creating dated entries very quickly.
- Highlight the column of data in the spreadsheet
- Copy the data
- Select a single “cell” in the first “Name” column of your database (it should be highlighted a solid blue color, but not editable)
- Paste the data
Use a filtered list to automatically populate values or database links
Did you know that adding a record to a filtered database view will cause it to inherit the criteria values of the filter? It’s true! For example, if we have a database filtered to show only records with a category of “Done”, dragging a record into the filtered view or creating a new record from this view will automatically update its category to “Done”.
Check all or uncheck all checkboxes in a to do list
If you highlight all of the blocks in a “To Do” list and click one of the checkboxes it will automatically check all of the checkboxes in the list. You can uncheck them all in this same way.
Get the page word count
Don’t count words manually! Notion already tracks word count for pages. You just need to know where to look to find it.
- Click the ellipsis (three dots) at the top-right corner of your page
- Look at the bottom of the menu that appears
- This will tell you how many words total are in this page
Create views from multiple databases within a single block
You can conserve precious dashboard real estate with this handy feature! Instead of using separate blocks to show views of database data, combine all of the views into one.
- Create a Linked view of database, style the view according to your needs
- Click the “+” icon to create a new view
- Click “Source” to search for a different database to display, style the view according to your needs
- Continue adding as many database views as you would like
Now, you can simply toggle between the views of your different databases. Look at how much space you just saved!
Open or close all toggles on a page
The cmd/ctrl + option/alt + T shortcut now opens & closes all database groups on a page in addition to toggle blocks.
Set the default template for a single view or entire database (NEW ✨)
This new feature is a complete game-changer. Do you have a single template for a database that should always be applied? Or maybe you have a specific view of a database where only a specific template should be applied. Now you can set the template as the default.
- Click the down arrow next to the blue “New” button on your database view
- Locate the template in the list
- Click the ellipsis (three dots) next to the template, and choose “Set as default”
- Affirm if you want this template to be the default for the active view only or for all views within the database
Now, when you click the “New” button the default template will automatically be applied. Note: this does not apply to records that are created by import (“Merge with CSV”) or by dragging / dropping an item into the database. My hope is that this will be an option soon!
Drag to populate column (NEW ✨)
While using a database in a table view, you can select and drag the value of one cell to fill all other selected cells. Just click and hold the small blue circle at the bottom of any cell, then drag up or down to the other cells.
Web clipper enhancement for recipes (NEW ✨)
Maybe you’ve noticed that just about every recipe on the internet comes with a long story that you have to scroll through (endlessly) before reaching the actual recipe. Well, Notion has noticed it too, and thankfully they’ve enhanced the Notion Web Clipper to do something really cool. When clipping a recipe from a site like The Food Network, the recipe will automatically be prioritized to the top of the clipped page. Now that’s a useful Notion feature!
Automatically expire a public page (NEW ✨)
Sharing is caring, but sometimes sharing needs an expiration. You can now set an expiration timer for a shared public Notion page.
- Select the “Share” option in the top-right corner of your Notion page
- Choose “Share to web”
- Under the “Link expires” option, select when the link should expire or manually set a date for the expiration (by default, the link will never expire)
Dynamic @mentions in the title of a database template (NEW ✨)
Now, you can include variables like @today, @now, @me in the title of a database template. For example, including @today in the title of a dated entry template means the current date will always populate the title automatically!
Show or hide vertical lines in a database table (NEW ✨)
Sometimes vertical lines can be distracting to the data in a database table. Now we can choose to show or hide the vertical lines.
- From any table view of a database, click the ellipsis (three dots) next to the blue “New” button
- Go to “Layout”
- Click the “Show vertical lines” toggle to turn lines off or on
Useful Hacks
Rollup a rollup (or group by a rollup)
You may have noticed that you cannot currently roll up another rollup (or group by a rollup property). We can get around this limitation by creating a new formula property to “clone” the value of the rollup.
prop("Rollup")
Now you are able to choose the formula property in your new rollup or group.
Round to the second decimal place using a formula
When performing math on numbers in properties, the result can be a number with many digits beyond what we want to see. Especially in working with currencies, it may be necessary to round to the second decimal place. By default, the round() function will round to the whole number. Here is how you can use a formula to round to the second decimal place. Multiply by 100 within the round function, then divide by 100 outside of the round function:
round(prop("Your Long Decimal Number") * 100) / 100
Quickly create long select lists
Here’s a method to quickly create long select or multi-select lists without a million clicks:
- Change the property type from “Select” to “Text”
- Type all of your select options in one long string, separated by a comma
- Change the property type back to “Select” or “Multi-select”
Your select list will be populated! Note that the colors will be defaulted to grey, so if you want to add colors that will have to be done manually.
Create columns within a callout, quote, or a toggle
Ok, so we can’t natively create columns inside a callout, quote, or toggle block, yet. Here’s a little hack to get around this:
- Create a page inside the callout, quote or toggle block
- Open the page
- Add columns and format how you wish
- Exit the page
- Click on the six dots next to the page block, choose Turn into -> Text
Quickly create columns from blocks
- Click and drag to highlight multiple blocks
- Click on the six dots next to the first block, choose Turn into -> Columns
The selected blocks will instantly be transformed into a column format!
Create a border box around a database
- Create a view of a database near a callout block (you will not be able to create it directly inside the callout)
- Drag the database view into the callout block
- Set the callout block background color to “Default”
- Optionally, you can upload a transparent icon to the callout box if you don’t want an icon to show
Create gallery view “buttons”
This method for creating navigation “buttons” using a gallery view is very simple to create, but has some serious minimalist appeal.
- Create a “Gallery” database view
- Under “Card preview” choose “None”
- In the database properties, hide all but the “Name” property
- Adjust card size to your preference
- Arrange the “buttons” horizontally (default) or vertically by placing into a narrow column
To see what else is new with Notion, check out the official “What’s New” page.
