Why Airtable Comments Don’t Update 'Last Modified' and What to Do

If you’re using Airtable to manage candidates, track leads, or organize projects, you probably use the comment feature to leave important updates. Comments are a natural place to record things like interview feedback, call summaries, or quick team notes. They help keep everything in one place without cluttering your fields.

But the problem with Airtable is that leaving a comment does not update the "Last Modified Date" field.

Even though you're adding new information to the record, Airtable does not treat comments as official changes. The "Last Modified Date" only updates when an actual field is edited.

This is frustrating if you're trying to track the most recent activity. For example, you might leave a detailed note about a phone screen with a candidate. But when you sort or filter your database by "Last Modified Date," that record still appears untouched. It looks like no one has interacted with it in days, even though you just did.

The same issue comes up in other situations. In a CRM, you might want to know when a lead was last contacted. In a marketing project, you might want to see who is actively contributing. In a task manager, you might want the latest comment to reflect recent progress.

Unfortunately, the native comment feature does not help with any of that.

So, How Can You Track Comments as Activity?

If your workflow depends on tracking the last time a record was updated, you will need to build your own custom commenting system. Here are two approaches that you can use

1. Use a Rich Text Field for Comments

Instead of using the built-in comment feature, create a field in your table (call it “Internal Notes” or “Latest Comment”) using the “Long Text” type with rich text enabled.

This way, whenever someone adds or updates a comment, it directly modifies a field, triggering the “Last Modified Date” to update accordingly.

Rich text fields also let you @mention teammates, which can be handy for notifications.

This option is fairly unstructured. You won’t know who added the comment or when it was added. But if your needs are simple, this can be a quick and easy solution.

2. Build a Linked Comment Log

You can create a separate “Comments” table and link it to your main table, such as “Candidates” or “Projects.” Every time someone adds a comment, they create a new record in the Comments table and link it to the related item.

This setup gives you a detailed activity history along with metadata like the author, timestamp, and even the type of comment.

3. Use a No-Code Automation Tool

If you're committed to using Airtable’s native comment feature but still want to track activity, you can set up an automation using no-code tools like Zapier, Make, or n8n.

Start by creating a new “Latest Comment” field in your table (use a Date field). Then, set up an automation that checks every minute or hour, depending on how often comments are added, to see if any new comments have been made on a record using Airtable’s API.

If it detects a new comment, the automation updates the “Latest Comment” field with the current timestamp.

This might feel like overkill if you just need a basic way to track updates.

But if you rely heavily on Airtable’s comment system, especially within an Airtable Interface where it's easy to view comments alongside the specific record, this can still be a solid option.

With a custom setup like this, you get full control over how interactions are tracked and displayed.