How to multi-select rows + other specific questions?

Baserow Help
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Are you using our SaaS platform (Baserow.io) or self-hosting Baserow?

Self-hosted.

What do you need help with?

Hey, folks!

My client is transitioning from Airtable to an alternative — I’m choosing between Baserow and NocoDB.

Currently testing both tools to see which one is better, since they are pretty similar, yet different in various details.

“Import from Airtable” feature is wonky in both apps — NocoDB failed to import the column names properly and there are some other stuff which are incorrect, while Baserow did a better job at it, but file/image import completely fumbled and they are just unusable (unless I can download a specific file and guess it’s file format, and add it manually), while NocoDB had the file extensions, at least.

Anyway, I have a few specific questions:

• How to multi-select rows?

My client often copies data from Airtable and pastes it into Google Sheets / Excel.

The process is insanely straightforward in Airtable — there’s a literal “select all” checkbox and it’s possible to just hold SHIFT and multi-select from one row to another.

NocoDB? No such thing, as far as I’m aware, which is mind-boggling. It is possible to hold the individual checkbox and hover over the others, but it takes a lot of time if you have a lot of rows. Also, it’s possible to click on an individual cell and hold SHIFT to select the others — seems faster, but it still takes a helluva lot of time.

Baserow is even worse, because it’s only hold SHIFT.

However, Baserow has 200 rows limit, while NocoDB seems to not have it at all, but while I tried copying from different tables (not just views), some columns prevented copying data entirely, giving the error “Failed to copy to clipboard”.

That being said, the performance in NocoDB is (way?) worse than in Baserow, or so it seems. I have a beefy laptop, mind you, so not sure why it is the case. Maybe it’s an issue on my side, but if that’s not the case than NocoDB definitely struggles if there’s more than 3K rows for sure. That being said, I did try refreshing the page and tried copying several times — sometimes it works fine, sometimes it lags like a lot, even freezes a page entirely (only page refresh saves the day). Not sure what’s going on.

Well, Baserow is a winner in performance here, but NocoDB does allow copying which is more important, imo, albeit it could give a popup first — Baserow could do the same, of course.

• Is it possible to multi-select rows, copy them and paste into Google Sheets / Excel?

Basically, the feature my clients needs. If it’s possible is it available on a free plan and a self-hosted version too?

• File input field — is it available on a self-hosted version for free?

I did notice the pricing mentioned “file input element” being limited to “Advanced” plan only, but it seemed like it is related to “applications” only, and not “databases”. I might be wrong, hence asking about it here.

My client uses the field to attach various, well, attachments like images and PDF files.

• Is there a dark mode? Is it coming anytime soon?

Just a personal preference, not important at all (to my client, at least).

• What are the difference in features-availability between self-hosted and free/paid cloud versions that are not mentioned in the pricing?

Last, but not least. I want to self-host Baserow for my client, so they would have full control over the data among other reasons — I will also use Make to create automations for them, like connecting Baserow (self-hosted) to Webflow.

Are there any “hidden” differences between self-hosted and cloud versions? Just want to be sure.

—

That’s about it, haha.

Thank you all for the replies in advance!

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Hi @Georgy, good to know you are considering Baserow!

Airtable import

We are continuously making improvements here, but they are limitations. When something is not imported correctly, you will get a small report stating that, so that you don’t miss something. I was just working on a fix for importing oversized files: Baserow will now skip them without failing for the files that are within limits. Will most likely be in the next release!

Do you miss anything else regarding file imports?

How to multi-select rows

You have three basic options:

  1. Use the check-boxes on the left side of the rows: This is mainly for selecting rows that are not adjacent.
  2. Mouse click: Start clicking in the leftmost top cell and then click on the rightmost bottom cell holding SHIFT. This will select all cells and all rows between.
  3. Right click → select row. After the first row is selected, you can expand the selection with SHIFT + top/down arrows.

The 200 lines limit can be changed when self-hosting.

Copy-paste into Google sheets

Yes, this works in Baserow. I recommend to try it with your data as the data formatting or behavior depends on specific fields.

File input free

Yes, File input is available in the free plan on saas when it comes to building databases.

Dark mode

No, and not really planned in the foreseeable future.

Differences between self-hosted and cloud versions

The main difference is the flexibility and availability of instance-wide features for self-hosters. Any instance-wide features and settings concerning e.g. user registration, performance, etc. are available for change when self-hosting. You can tweak the number of rows that can be copy-pasted for example.

Did I miss anything? Do you have more questions?

Have a nice day!

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Thanks for the reply, @petrs! Much appreciated!

Just want to clarify, when this release will be out? I’m going to self-host Baserow next week (prob. on Monday-Tuesday), and I would really like to have the fixed import by then, so I could import all of the client’s data from Airtable.

BTW, I assumed that Airtable import works on a self-hosted version, I hope I’m not wrong, haha.

I didn’t do a deep dive in all of the structure yet, but I did check what couldn’t be imported and… well, there’s a lot of stuff, over 3K (according to “Airtable import report”)! Gladly, the vast majority of them are file related, and actually 165 rows left, which is manageable.

That being said, I did expect to some fields not to be supported, but formula import not working is disheartaning — gonna do quite some manual work in this regard.

Got it, how to change the 200 lines limit? Apologies in advance, I didn’t do a ton of research in self-hosting Baserow, so maybe it’s written in the documentation.

As for the options:

  1. This is manual, correct? Like one by one?
  2. Yeah, this is what I found out — quite tedious, but manageable… unless there’s a lot of rows.
  3. Oh, wow, thanks, that’s quite handy!

Just an idea, but since it’s possible to remove the 200 rows limit on the self-hosted version, maybe you can add a select all checkbox?

Even then, maybe you’ll add an option to select rows while holding a left click by hovering over checkboxes, for example?

Did try it out, thanks, glad it works!

Got it, that’s great! So it’s only limited to building applications, like forms where users can submit, well, submissions with images, etc?

This is not an issue, of course, but my humble dark mode enjoying soul would really love it. Still, I can create it myself. Oh, actually an idea for the small project, hahaha.

I see, thanks! So, basically, more control over the app/configuration itself. Basically, only benefits, except that it takes time and skill to self-host, of course.

That’s about it, except the questions in this comment — hopefully you can answer them too!

Thanks a lot for the replies, I really appreciate it!

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I don’t have the PR merged yet and the release is due in something like a week or two probably, no date yet.

I assumed that Airtable import works on a self-hosted version, I hope I’m not wrong

Yes.

formula import not working is disheartaning

True, formulas won’t be automatically imported. But you can try using our AI assistant Kuma to bridge the gap between the formulas.

how to change the 200 lines limit?

ROW_PAGE_SIZE_LIMIT env var. You can also configure the file size with BASEROW_FILE_UPLOAD_SIZE_LIMIT_MB.

Just an idea, but since it’s possible to remove the 200 rows limit on the self-hosted version, maybe you can add a select all checkbox?

I suggest that you open new topics as “Feature request” on this forum so people can upvote the ideas, otherwise it will get lost.

Got it, that’s great! So it’s only limited to building applications, like forms where users can submit, well, submissions with images, etc?

The database module itself has forms, so no need to build a Baserow application to have form submissions.

Hope this answers your questions :slight_smile:

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Awesome, thanks for the quick replies, much appreciate!

Will use Baserow down the line, I love your responses!

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Hey, @petrs!

I gave my client an access to the self-hosted Baserow and they had a couple of questions:

  1. Why rows calculations in groups sorting is broken (the number on the right side of the group name)?

    For example, total number of rows in “Company ‘Love me apples’ Inc.” is 260, but it shows 40/20/120 (the number changes while scrolling) for some reason, e.g. it’s incorrect.

  2. How to summarize various data for each group? How to “minimize” a group instead of scrolling all the way down?

    For example, I can see the total cost of all participants (rows) in the “Events” database, but there’s no way to see each groups data, like I cannot see a total cost of all participants in “2026 Summer Camp” event (group) only.

    This feature is quite important for my client, since they want to see total X for specific groups at a glance.

    This is possible in Airtable — you can see a total cost (sum) of each tariff (group). Also, you can see the “minimization” of the group, since I don’t need to see all the data at once.

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  3. This is my question, but do Baserow formulas differ a lot from Airtable ones?

    I didn’t check the docs yet, just focused on the server side of things for now.

Thanks for the replies in advance!

Oh, BTW, some hotkeys not working in non-English or non-Latin keyboard layouts. Like CTRL+Z doesn’t work on a Russian layout. I think it’s possible to change the Baserow config, I did Google about it, but not sure how to do it exactly, don’t know much about Docker too. Would be great if it was implemented, since lack of the non-Latin keyboard layouts is kinda strange, imo.

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Hi @Georgy,

  1. I don’t see row counts being wrong for tables when group by is used. Can you provide steps to reproduce?
  2. None of this is currently possible in Baserow, but we do have issues to track it and we would like to implement it at some point: Aggregations per group by · Issue #2258 · baserow/baserow · GitHub , Summary (footer aggregations) for selected rows · Issue #2775 · baserow/baserow · GitHub , Collapsing of rows in a group by · Issue #2257 · baserow/baserow · GitHub .
  3. I don’t know Airtable formulas. One major difference is that in baserow we reference fields via field(‘name’) while it is I think possible to just use the name directly in Airtable.
  4. I am not aware of the ability to change this. You can open a bug report to provide specific problems, or maybe a feature request to make it configurable.