Finding Your Content
Contentful lists every entry across your entire site in one place. With dozens or hundreds of entries, finding what you need takes a few tricks.
The Content List
When you open the Content tab in Contentful, you see every entry — pages, sections, images, everything mixed together. Don’t panic. You’re not meant to scroll through it all.
Start with Aggregators
This is the single best habit to build. Filter the content list by Big Aggregator and you’ll see every page on your site. From there, you can click into any aggregator and find the content blocks, images, and sections it contains — all linked inside the entry.
Think of aggregators as the table of contents for your site. You almost never need to search for a Pure Content block directly — just find the page it lives on, open the aggregator, and click through to the content you want to edit.
Filter by Content Type
At the top of the content list, click Content type to narrow what you see:
| You want to… | Filter by |
|---|---|
| Find a page (start here) | Big Aggregator |
| Edit text or media directly | Pure Content |
| Change site navigation or footer | Site Settings |
| Edit a form | Form |
Search by Name
The search bar at the top searches entry titles. If you know the name of the page or content block you’re looking for, type it in.
Tips:
- Search is case-insensitive — “about us” and “About Us” both work.
- Partial matches work — typing “about” will find “About Us”, “About Our Team”, etc.
- If you don’t find it by title, try filtering by content type first, then searching within that filtered view.
Filter by Status
Use the Status filter to find entries in a specific state:
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Published | Live on the website |
| Changed | Published, but you’ve made edits that aren’t live yet |
| Draft | Never published — not visible on the site |
| Archived | Hidden from the main list, not published |
This is especially useful for finding work-in-progress — filter by Changed or Draft to see what still needs to be published.
Saved Views
This is the real time-saver. Contentful lets you save a filtered view so you can come back to it with one click.
How to create a saved view
- Set up your filters (content type, status, search, etc.)
- Click the Save view button (or “Save as new view”)
- Give it a name — e.g., “My Draft Pages” or “All Pure Content”
- The view now appears in your sidebar under Views
Suggested views to set up
| View name | Filters | Why it’s useful |
|---|---|---|
| Pages | Content type = Big Aggregator | Quick access to all pages |
| Content Blocks | Content type = Pure Content | Find text/media to edit |
| Unpublished Changes | Status = Changed | See what needs publishing |
| Drafts | Status = Draft | Find work-in-progress |
Views are personal — other editors won’t see yours unless you share them.
Sorting
Click any column header in the content list to sort by it:
- Updated — find what you (or someone else) last edited
- Name — alphabetical browsing
- Status — group published and draft entries together
Sorting by Updated is the quickest way to find something you were just working on.
Tips
- Set up your saved views on day one. It takes 2 minutes and saves you time on every visit.
- Use content type filter first, then search. Searching across all types gives noisy results.
- “Changed” status means unpublished edits. If you see entries with this status, someone made edits that aren’t live yet — they might need publishing.