Use filtering to modify a SharePoint view

Filters reduce the amount of data returned by selecting items based on operations (such as greater than or less than) and matching data. When you create a filtered view, your first indexed column in the filter expression should reduce the data set the greatest amount. For example, filtering on a state or date field can often reduce a data set considerably. If you've got 15,000 items, you'll want to have the first index return less than 5000 items. If your data set doesn't have over 5000 items, it's still a good practice.

SharePoint selects the first indexed column in a query, and then uses the rest of the columns to select your data. Other columns you specify in the view filter may or may not be indexed. The view does not use those indexes, even if the result of the filtered view returns less than the List View Threshold.

For example, you have a query: size = large AND color = red. In the list, size is not indexed, but color is. As long as there are fewer than 5000 "red" items in the list, the query succeeds in a large list. However, if you have a query size = large OR color = red, though database may find all the red items, it must scan the complete list to find all the large items. If there are more than 5000 items returned, the query is throttled.

If you use two or more columns in the filter expression, the determining index or indexes should use an AND operator. For example, if you want to return Dogs from a large list of animals. You have an unindexed column called Species where you have Dog as a value. If you just query for Species = Dog, your query will be throttled. However, if you have an indexed column called Class, your query becomes Class = Mammals AND Species = Dog. You could also search for cats and dogs with the query Class = Mammals AND (Species = DOG OR Species = Cats). The second query selects all Mammals, and then filters to Dogs and Cats.

If the columns that you'll be using to filter don't have indexes, you'll want to start by creating indexes. For more info, see Add an index to a SharePoint column.

After you index a column, you can add it when you create or modify a view, and then use it to filter the view. Before creating a view, you may want to add more columns to the list to enable more flexibility for sorting, grouping, and filtering. For sorting and filtering, you can choose columns that are in the data set, but not displayed.

Create a view

Open the List or Library where you want to create a view.

1. Click the List or Library tab, and then click Create View.
   
   

2. On the View Type page, click the view you want to use. If unsure, choose Standard View.

   

3. Type a View Name.

   

4. Edit the web address for the view, or accept the default. You can come back and change this later.

5. In the Filter section, click Show items only when the following is true, and then choose how you want to filter the items based on one of the columns that is indexed.

   For example, to create a view of only items that changed today, choose the Modified (Indexed) column and the is equal to condition, and then type [Today].

   

   Note: If you do not see any columns that say (Indexed) after the name, you do not have any indexed columns available for that list or library. You must first Create a simple or compound index.

6. To limit the number of items displayed on each page, scroll down to Item Limit and set the Number of items to display value. When you create a view, the default number of items to be displayed is 30.

   

7. There are two options you can choose when setting an item limit on a page:

   • Display items in batches of the specified size which creates a page-by-page display of the data that is useful when you are browsing items in a non-interactive way.

     When there are more items than your limit setting, the display will be paged.

     

   • Limit the total number of items returned to the specified amount creates a hard limit that may or may not return the entire results of your filter operation. This can be useful when testing your view, creating a prototype, or you only want to retrieve the top values in a view.

8. Under Style, you can choose Preview Pane to see all the information from items in your list in a vertical pane format. The preview pane is one of the View Styles you can choose under Style when editing or creating a view.

   

   You can more quickly navigate the data by hovering over the item title in a scrolling region on the left side of the page, to see all the column values of the current item vertically listed on the right side of the page. Less initial data is displayed, and this helps display the view faster. This style is also very useful when your list is wide or has many columns and would require horizontal scrolling to see the data.

   

9. Click OK.

There are more steps you can do with a view, but this is enough to view data that has exceeded the List View Threshold if you're blocked. You can also sort, or group by, set totals, expand folders, and optimize the view viewing with a mobile device.

Modify a view

Open the List or Library where you want to create a view.

1. Click the List or Library tab, select the view under Current View, and then click Modify View.
   
   

2. Scroll down to the Views section, and then click a view.

3. You can then change settings as outlined in steps 5 through 9 in the Create a view procedure above.

4. Click OK.

For a view to quickly filter through many items, the first column in the filter must be indexed. Other columns you specify in the view filter may or may not be indexed, but the view does not use those indexes. The first column of the filter should return fewer items than the List View Threshold.

If the first column of the filter returns more items than the List View Threshold, you can use a filter with two or more columns. When you define a filtered view that uses two or more columns, use an AND operator to limit the total number of items returned. But even in this case, you still need to specify as the first column in the filter the column that most likely returns the lesser amount of data. Using an OR filter almost always increases the number of items returned and won't be effective under these circumstances.

For more info on views, see Create, change, or delete a view of a list or library.

There are two key words that you can use to filter based on the current day [Today], or the current user [Me]. These are dynamic as they change with the user or the date.

Using [Me] can be helpful when you just want to see your documents in a large library. [Me] operates on people based columns such as Created by, or Modified by. For example, to see all documents you've created, set a filter with the Created by column equal to [Me]. If you're an editor and want to see the last files you were working on, set a filter on the Modified by column to is equal to [Me]. To see both, create two filters connected by Or.

The [Today] keyword works on date based columns. You can use math to get ranges that change with today's date. For example, to see all documents that were modified in the last 30 days, you can create a filter on the Date column that's greater than or equal to [Today] - 30. To leave out the current day, set a second filter on the Date column to is less than [Today] and connect them with And.

You can filter a SharePoint list that has a metadata column. 

Add a metadata column to your list

Go to your list and select +Add column.

Select More...   choose the Managed Metadata radio button, and then select OK.

Alternatively, once you've created a Managed Metadata column and added items to your list, you can apply metadata tags by clicking the Tag icon  in the edit list item pane.

Apply metadata tags in the tree view pane.

Filter on Managed Metadata tags

1. Select the filter icon  to access the filter pane.

   

   Note: You can select the Tree View option from the dropdown list at the top of the pane, which provides a hierarchical view of the terms associated with the selected column.

2. Select the metadata tag(s) that you want to filter on.

   

3. Alternatively, if you have at least 5 values defined in the Managed Metadata column, select the See All link to view the filter pane.

   

4. Check the metadata tag(s) that you want to filter on, and select Apply.

The following are some suggestions for typical views that would work well with indexed columns: