How to Keep New Records from Disappearing in a Filtered Airtable View

Let us say you have a table with thousands of records and several filtered views. Each view is for a specific team.

Each team view is filtered so members only see the records relevant to them.

Now, when someone tries to create a new record directly in one of these filtered views, they type in the first bit of information, but before they can finish adding the rest, the record suddenly disappears.

Airtable hides it because it no longer matches the filter criteria. Airtable will only show it as long as it matches your filters.

If they have not yet filled in the fields that make it match, Airtable hides it.

This is frustrating because the whole point of the filtered view is to keep the workspace clean for that team. Yet the very thing that makes it clean also makes it hard to add new records.

Your users do not want to use forms. They do not want interfaces.

They want to stay in grid view because that is what fits their workflow. But the disappearing record problem makes that workflow clunky.

Approach 1: Fill in the Required Fields Immediately

When you add a new record in a filtered view, Airtable keeps it highlighted so you can enter the details right away.

If users can fill in all the required details immediately, or at least the fields that are part of the filter, the record will stay in place.

However, some users need to check other information before completing the details. When they click somewhere else to do that, Airtable checks the filter and hides the record if it does not match.

If your team can get into the habit of entering the filtered fields immediately, this approach requires no additional setup.

Approach 2: Use a “Created by” Filter Condition

If filling in the details immediately is not practical, you can adjust your filters so new records created by the current user always remain visible until they are completed.

Keep the first part of your filter exactly as it is, then add an OR condition. After the OR, include a condition that shows records where the Created by field is the current user.

With this setup, new records will remain visible for the person who created them even if they do not yet match the main filter.

This gives them time to finish updating the record whenever they are ready. Once the record is complete and matches the main filter, it will continue to appear in the view as normal.

Cleaning Up Incomplete Records

One drawback of the Created by filter approach is that incomplete records can remain in the view if a team member forgets to finish them.

Other team members will not see these incomplete records if they do not match the filter, so no one may realize they exist.

Since your main view contains thousands of records, it is not practical to spot them there either.

To prevent this, create a formula field that flags missing information. For example, if any of Field 1, Field 2, or Field 3 is blank, the formula could return “Missing required info.”

Example formula:

IF(OR(ISBLANK(Field1), ISBLANK(Field2), ISBLANK(Field3)), "Missing required info", "")

Once this field is in place, set up an automation to run daily or weekly (depending on your usage) that deletes all records flagged as incomplete.

This will keep your filtered views clean and your data accurate while still allowing new records to remain visible long enough for users to finish them.