Skip to main content

Does "commenting" an entry count as a modification regarding the default value "last modified date" ?
Thanks !

@Thibzim 

No, if you use Airtable’s internal commenting system, that does not update the “Last Modified Date” of a record.

If you would like to update the “Last Modified Date” for new or updated comments, my recommendation would be to create your own internal commenting system in Airtable by either using:

  1. A rich text field to keep track of comments. Rich text fields are unique in that they give you the ability to tag & notify other users.
    or
  2. Creating a linked record field that links to a table of comments, which then gives you more flexibility to keep track of as much metadata that you want for each comment. You can also use rich text fields here to tag & notify users as well.

Hope this helps! If you’d like to hire the best Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld


Hey ​@Thibzim!

​​​​@ScottWorld mentioned, native comments mechanism do not affect the Last Modified time of a record.

If you do not want to affect the Last Modified time: you are already on the safe side.

If you do want to affect the last modified time:
(i) Long Text field, probably with rich text formatting -as mentioned by Scott
(ii) New table linked to each table where you want to make comments, and have a “comments log” setup. -also as mentioned by Scott
(iii) You could have a new date time field called Latest Comment, and set up an automation using Zapier, Make, or n8n (you can read more about the differences for such 3rd party automation tools here), to check via API every minute or so if there have been new comments to the records, and then go and update the Latest Comment field for the record.

Solution (i) above is very unstructured, and I usually do not suggest to go with it.

Solution (ii) is what I usually implement. On such commenting log table you can have the date automatically with a Created field, a Long Text field for the comment itself, and a Team Member field (ideally linked to a Team Members table) to input who is submitting the comment. Biggest limitation, you will not be able to tag users on the long text field itself to have them receive comments, however there are different workarounds to that which I’d be happy to discuss or show you around. 

Solution (iii) might be overbuilding, but needed if you rely too much on native commenting mechanism. I would try to avoid this.

Hope this helps!

Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation


Hi ​@Mike_AutomaticN,

Regarding your Solution (ii) above, you can still tag & notify users in the long text fields, as long as rich text formatting is turned on.

- ScottWorld, Expert Airtable Consultant


Oh!!!!! That is interesting, I don’t think I am using that currently. Thanks ​@ScottWorld!
(TBH I do not use Airtable notifications/native tags often either, as I usually want to get notifications via slack or other forms). Thanks Scott!


You’re welcome! 😀🙌


Reply