Update database properties

Deprecated as of version 2025-09-03

This page describes the API for versions up to and including 2022-06-28. In the new 2025-09-03 version, the concepts of databases and data sources were split up, as described in Upgrading to 2025-09-03.

Refer to the new page instead:

• Update data source properties

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

To use the API to update a data source’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.

removing properties by ID

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

removing properties by name

"properties": {
  "propertyToDelete": null
}

Rename a property

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

renaming properties by ID

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

renaming properties by name

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

Property	Type	Description
name	string	The name of the property as it appears in Notion.

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", "status", "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.

Select configuration updates

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

Property	Type	Description	Example value
options	optional array of existing select options and select option objects	Settings for select properties. If an existing option is omitted, it will be removed from the database property. New options will be added to the database property.

Existing select options

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

Property	Type	Description	Example value
name	optional string	Name of the option.	"Fruit"
id	optional string	ID of the option.	"ff8e9269-9579-47f7-8f6e-83a84716863c"

Multi-select configuration updates

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

Property	Type	Description	Example value
options	optional array of existing select options and multi-select option objects	Settings for multi select properties. If an existing option is omitted, it will be removed from the database property. New options will be added to the database property.

Existing multi-select options

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

Property	Type	Description	Example value
name	string	Name of the option as it appears in Notion.	"Fruit"
id	optional string	ID of the option.	"ff8e9269-9579-47f7-8f6e-83a84716863c"

Status configuration updates

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

Property	Type	Description	Example value
options	optional array of existing status options and status option objects	Settings for status properties. If an existing option is omitted, it will be removed from the database property. New options will be added to the database property and assigned to the requested group when provided.

Existing status options

Note that the name and color of an existing option cannot be updated. Use group to assign an existing or new option to one of the existing status groups.

Property	Type	Description	Example value
name	optional string	Name of the option as it appears in Notion.	"In review"
id	optional string	ID of the option.	"ff8e9269-9579-47f7-8f6e-83a84716863c"
group	optional string (enum)	Status group to assign the option to. Possible values are To-do, In progress, and Complete. Existing options keep their current group when omitted. New options use To-do when present, or the first existing group otherwise.	"In progress"

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 connection needs permissions to the other relation page. If the connection doesn’t have permissions page needed to compute the property value, the API will return a "object_not_found" error specifying the page the connection 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 connection is paginating through results, the final value will impacted and is not guaranteed to be accurate.