---
title: Select
label: Select
order: 30
desc: Payload select determines which fields are selected to the result.
keywords: query, documents, pagination, documentation, Content Management System, cms, headless, javascript, node, react, nextjs
---

You may not need the full data from your Local API / REST queries, but only some specific fields. The select fields API can help you to optimize those cases.

## Local API

To specify select in the [Local API](../local-api/overview), you can use the `select` option in your query:

```ts
// Include mode
const getPosts = async () => {
  const posts = await payload.find({
    collection: 'posts',
    select: {
      text: true,
      // select a specific field from group
      group: {
        number: true
      },
      // select all fields from array
      array: true,
    }, // highlight-line
  })

  return posts
}

// Exclude mode
const getPosts = async () => {
  const posts = await payload.find({
    collection: 'posts',
    // Select everything except for array and group.number
    select: {
      array: false,
      group: {
        number: false
      }
    }, // highlight-line
  })

  return posts
}
```


<Banner type="warning">
  <strong>Important:</strong>
  To perform querying with `select` efficiently, it works on the database level. Because of that, your `beforeRead` and `afterRead` hooks may not receive the full `doc`.
</Banner>


## REST API

To specify select in the [REST API](../rest-api/overview), you can use the `select` parameter in your query:

```ts
fetch('https://localhost:3000/api/posts?select[color]=true&select[group][number]=true') // highlight-line
  .then((res) => res.json())
  .then((data) => console.log(data))
```

To understand the syntax, you need to understand that complex URL search strings are parsed into a JSON object. This one isn't too bad, but more complex queries get unavoidably more difficult to write.

For this reason, we recommend to use the extremely helpful and ubiquitous [`qs-esm`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/qs-esm) package to parse your JSON / object-formatted queries into query strings:

```ts
import { stringify } from 'qs-esm'

const select = {
  text: true,
  group: {
    number: true
  }
  // This query could be much more complex
  // and QS would handle it beautifully
}

const getPosts = async () => {
  const stringifiedQuery = stringify(
    {
      select, // ensure that `qs` adds the `select` property, too!
    },
    { addQueryPrefix: true },
  )

  const response = await fetch(`http://localhost:3000/api/posts${stringifiedQuery}`)
  // Continue to handle the response below...
}
```

<Banner type="info">
  <strong>Reminder:</strong>
  This is the same for [Globals](../configuration/globals) using the `/api/globals` endpoint.
</Banner>


## `defaultPopulate` collection config property

The `defaultPopulate` property allows you specify which fields to select when populating the collection from another document.
This is especially useful for links where only the `slug` is needed instead of the entire document.

```ts
import type { CollectionConfig } from 'payload'

import { lexicalEditor, LinkFeature } from '@payloadcms/richtext-lexical'
import { slateEditor } from '@payloadcms/richtext-slate'

// The TSlug generic can be passed to have type safety for `defaultPopulate`.
// If avoided, the `defaultPopulate` type resolves to `SelectType`.
export const Pages: CollectionConfig<'pages'> = {
  slug: 'pages',
  // Specify `select`.
  defaultPopulate: {
    slug: true,
  },
  fields: [
    {
      name: 'slug',
      type: 'text',
      required: true,
    },
  ],
}
```

## `populate`

You can override `defaultPopulate` with the `populate` property in the Local and REST API

Local API:
```ts
const getPosts = async () => {
  const posts = await payload.find({
    collection: 'posts',
    populate: {
      // Select only `text` from populated docs in the "pages" collection
      pages: {
        text: true,
      }, // highlight-line
    },
  })

  return posts
}
```

REST API:
```ts
fetch('https://localhost:3000/api/posts?populate[pages][text]=true') // highlight-line
  .then((res) => res.json())
  .then((data) => console.log(data))
```