How to Share Airtable Bases Without Losing Automations

If you’ve ever tried sharing an Airtable base with a client using a public link, you’ve probably run into this frustrating problem: automations don’t get copied.

Tables and interfaces come through just fine—but automations? Gone.

And if your base includes complex automations, rebuilding them manually is a huge waste of time.

Right now, there are only a couple of ways to deal with this. Each comes with its own set of issues, but here they are:

Option 1: Share a Read-Only Base Link

You can share the base by inviting someone via email or by creating a link with read-only access.

If they duplicate the base from there, automations will get copied.

The problem with this approach is that the person can see everyone else you've shared the base with.

That’s not always ideal—especially when working with multiple clients who shouldn’t see each other’s names.

One way to work around this is:

• Start with your Original Base
• Duplicate it to create Client A’s version
• Share that version only with Client A
• Duplicate the Original Base again to create Client B’s version
• Share that one with Client B

This way, each client only sees their own version and can't see others.

But if you have many clients, this approach won’t scale well.

Option 2: Have the Client Invite You

Ask the client to invite you to their Airtable workspace with read-only access. Once you’re in, you can duplicate the base directly into their workspace.

The only downside is that the client has to take action by inviting you first.

But the advantage is that the base remains private between you and the client—no one else can see who you've shared it with.

It’s a bit like Option 1, except now the work is done on the client’s side.

Right now, there’s no way to copy automations using a public share link.

So until Airtable changes this, these two workarounds are your best bet. Hopefully, a better solution will be available soon.