Filter contacts by a custom field

Before you start

• Your role must be Owner or Admin to add or edit custom fields.
• Decide which entity the field describes — Contacts, Payments, or Accounts. This how-to covers the contacts case; the same pattern works for the other tabs.

Steps

1. Create a custom field

1. Go to Settings → Custom Fields.
2. Make sure the Contacts tab is selected.
3. Click Add Field.
4. Fill in:
   • Label — how the field reads to your team ("Donor Tier", "Employer", "T-Shirt Size").
   • Type — pick the shape of the value. Dropdown and Date are the two that change how donors and admins enter it.
   • Options — only for Dropdown: list the choices separated by commas.
5. Turn Filterable on.
6. Click Create Field. You'll see a new row in the table.

Marking a field filterable adds a database index in the background. You can use the field to filter the contacts list within about a minute.

2. Use it to filter

1. Go to Contacts.
2. Open the filter panel.
3. Click + Rule.
4. Pick your custom field from the field picker. Custom fields are listed by label.
5. Pick an operator (the list changes based on the field's type) and a value.
6. The URL updates as you edit — copy and paste it to share a filter view with a teammate.

3. Sort by the field

1. In the contacts list, open the columns menu (top-right).
2. Scroll to Custom Fields and toggle your field on.
3. Click the column header to sort. Click again to reverse.

The sort state is preserved in the URL with the filter.

4. Rename or change the field

From Settings → Custom Fields:

• Rename — click the pencil icon on the field's row, update the label, and save. The new label appears everywhere instantly: picker, chips, column header, exports.
• Change type — only possible before any contact has a value for the field. Once any contact has a value, the Type selector is disabled with a tooltip explaining why.

5. What happens if you delete the field later

If any teammate has saved a filter URL that uses the field, opening that URL after the field is deleted shows a banner above the filter chips:

1 filter rule was removed because the custom field is no longer available.

Click Clean up filter to strip the stale rule from the saved URL. The filter still runs correctly in the meantime — the deleted rule is just ignored.

See also

• Custom fields — reference — full list of types, operators, and settings.
• Advanced filter logic — compose AND / OR / NOT across custom-field and core filters.

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