Collections overview

A Collection is a database where you can store content to reference throughout your site. Each Collection holds a different type of content — for example, blog posts, authors, recipes, etc. — and individual pieces of content within a Collection are called Collection items.

How to create a Collection

To create a new Collection, open the CMS panel and click the “Create new Collection” icon. Then, you can design your Collection schema (i.e., the structure or blueprint for the items in your Collection) using:

• Collection settings
• Collection fields
• Collection templates

Pro tip: You can click and drag to reorder your Collections in the CMS panel.

Once you create a Collection, you can create Collection items within the Collection — like blog posts, recipes, help articles, projects, etc. — in the Designer or the Editor. Learn more about creating and managing Collection items.

You can also pull content from your Collection and use that dynamic content in your site’s design. Learn more about designing with dynamic content.

Collection settings

Collection name

You can name your Collection in the Collection name field and change the name at any time. Once you name your Collection, Webflow generates singular and plural versions of the name to use throughout the site (e.g., blog post and blog posts). You can customize the plural and singular versions of your Collection name by clicking the Plural version or Singular version beneath the Collection name field.

Collection URL

You can also choose a Collection URL — the slug for the folder that holds your Collection pages (i.e., the pages generated for each Collection item in your Collection). For example, if you have a Blog Posts Collection with the Collection URL post, the URL structure for a blog post would be: yourdomain.com/post/your-blog-post. Webflow automatically generates a Collection URL that matches the Collection name, but you can customize the Collection URL at any time.

If you rename your Collection URL after publishing your site, you’ll need to set 301 redirects to ensure that any existing external links to pages in your Collection continue to work. To redirect a Collection URL without having to create a redirect for each individual Collection item in the Collection, you can set up your redirect as follows:

• Old path: /old-collection-url/(.*)
• Redirect to path: /new-collection-url/%1

Note: You can’t use reserved slugs to name your Collections or Collection URLs. Additionally, you can’t enable Ecommerce on an existing site if you have CMS Collections, static pages, or folders with Ecommerce slugs like product or category.

Collection fields

Collection fields are fields that store data for each item in your Collection. You can add this data to individual Collection items and reference the data (i.e., content) in your site designs.

Each Collection comes with a Name and Slug field, which serve as the name and slug of each Collection item. Webflow automatically generates the slug when you name your Collection item, but you can customize it to create your own slug.

You can also create custom fields to structure your Collection by going to the Custom fields section and clicking Add field. You can choose from the following field types:

• Plain text
• Rich text
• Image
• Multi-image
• Video link
• Link
• Email
• Phone
• Number
• Date/time
• Switch
• Color
• Option
• File
• Reference
• Multi-reference

You can add help text to any custom field to clarify what each field is intended for — this is useful when collaborating with others to add or edit Collection items.

Note: Ecommerce Collections come with a set of default fields (e.g., “Price”) which aren’t available as custom fields for non-Ecommerce Collections. You can add more custom Collection fields to Ecommerce Collections, but you cannot remove any of the default fields.

Collection templates

If you aren’t sure what content structure you’ll need for your Collection, you can use a prebuilt Collection template to get started. The available templates include:

• Blog posts
• Authors
• Categories
• Projects
• Clients
• Team members
• Listings
• Events
• Menu items
• Songs
• Shows
• Recipes

When you use a Collection template, the Collection settings and Collection fields will be pre-filled. You can add, delete, and customize each setting and field.

How to edit a Collection

After creating a Collection, you can edit its structure and settings at any time. You’ll need to republish your site after making changes to your Collection schema.

To edit a Collection:

1. Go to the CMS panel and hover over the Collection you want to edit
2. Click the settings “cog” icon that appears

You can add, edit, or remove custom fields.

Note: You can’t delete custom fields that are currently in use on your site (e.g., used in your designs, Collection pages and their settings, Collection lists and their settings).

How to duplicate a Collection

You can duplicate a Collection’s settings and fields to create a new Collection with the same structure and format as an existing Collection.

To duplicate a Collection:

1. Go to the CMS panel and hover over the Collection you want to duplicate
2. Click the settings “cog” icon to open the Collection’s settings
3. Click the “duplicate” icon

Important: You must click Create Collection on the duplicate Collection’s settings page to save the duplicate Collection.

When you duplicate a Collection, the new Collection shows up in the CMS panel with the original Collection’s name appended with “Copy” (e.g., if you duplicate a “Blog Posts” Collection, the duplicated Collection’s name will be “Blog Posts Copy”). The Collection URL is also appended with “Copy” (e.g., if your original Collection’s URL is yourdomain.com/blog, the duplicated Collection URL will be yourdomain.com/blog-copy).

Duplicated Collections include all Collection settings (i.e., the Collection name, URL, basic info fields, and custom fields) but don’t include Collection items or content on Collection template pages.

How to delete a Collection

You can delete Collections when they’re no longer needed. To delete a Collection, you’ll first need to delete all Collection items from the Collection and remove all connections to the Collection and its fields. Learn more about deleting Collections.