Autonumber not sequential if records deleted

[Graham_Thomas]

Hello,

I’m having issues with Autonumber. I have a simple sequential ID being created as an autonumber, starting with 1, through 2, 3, 4, etc. When a new record is created it automatically assigns a ‘number’ to it. So next in this sequence would be 5. However, for example if we now delete record five, and a new record is created after this, instead of numbering it ‘5’ based on the sequence, it starts at 6. This is a real problem because a bunch of records were created to demonstrate to a colleague, and were then deleted. So now the numbering is starting at much higher than the next in the sequence.

Any reason why this is doing this and is there any way to ensure it’ll just create a new number based on the previous record number?

[W_Vann_Hall]

That’s the intended behavior. You can resync the field by changing it to a different type (single-line text, number, whatever) and then changing it back to autonumber. It will renumber according to the current sort. Otherwise, there is no way to reallocate the number from a deleted record.

[Graham_Thomas]

Thank you! I should have read that :slightly_smiling_face: I just assumed it must be a bug or something. Makes sense though.

[Jason_F]

I love Airtable but this is such a silly work around. Why not make an option that says if new record added re number or give me the ability or refresh the column.

[Aditya_Sharma]

We have to open the Airtable Website/App to reset it. How will I know about that while using my app? If I delete a middle row from the data like 1, 2, 4, 5… It will cause an error in my app. Is there any alternative method to fix this?