10 Notion Tips & Tricks You Might Not Know (Yet)

Notion is packed with powerful features, but many of the best ones stay hidden in menus, view settings, or slash commands. After working inside dozens of client workspaces as a Notion consultant and template creator, I’ve noticed the same thing again and again:

Most people use the basics.

Very few use the “quiet” features that actually makes a workspace feel polished, intuitive, and easy to maintain.

In this article, you’ll walk through 10 somewhat hidden Notion features you might have seen but never fully explored and how to start using them in your own setup.

1. Ultra-Minimal Galleries (Hide the Name Property)

Gallery view is one of the only database views where you can hide the name property. This means you can design beautiful, image-only layouts without text labels underneath every card.

How to use it:

• Create a gallery view database (for example, a Photography or Inspiration gallery).
• Add page covers to each entry (photos, mockups, or designed title cards).
• Open View → Layout and set Card preview to Page cover.
• In Property Visibility, turn off Name and hide the database title.

You’ll be left with a clean grid of images, which can be perfect for mood boards, cover photo libraries, or visual navigation cards where the image already contains text.

2. Colored Pins in Map View

Map view is great on its own, but it becomes far more powerful when you combine it with conditional colors.

Example: A restaurant tracker where each pin color matches a cuisine.

How to set it up:

• Create a database and add a Place property for locations.
• Add a Select property like Type (e.g., Sushi, French, Café).
• Switch to Map view.
• Go to Settings → Conditional color → + New color setting.
• Choose your select property (Type)!

Now each type of restaurant appears with its own pin color, making your map much easier to scan.

3. Freezing Columns in Table View

Large tables can quickly become hard to read when you have many properties. Freezing columns lets you keep the most important information like task names pinned while you scroll horizontally.

How to use it:

• In a table view, click on a column.
• Choose Freeze.
• Decide where you want the freeze to start (for example, after the Name column or after Status).

This is especially useful for task managers, CRMs, or project trackers with many supporting fields.

4. Getting More from the Inbox

Your Notion inbox on the left-hand side is more than just @-mentions.

You can filter it to see exactly the kind of activity you care about:

• Unread only for focused triage.
• Archived to revisit old items.
• All workspace updates to see everything happening across a busy team workspace.

If you’re working with collaborators, occasionally switching to All workspace updates is a great way to understand what changed while you were away.

5. Page Info, Updates, and Version History

Every Notion page quietly tracks useful metadata:

• Word count
• Last edited time
• Who last edited it
• Who originally created the page

You can find this under the three dots (•••) in the top-right corner and scrolling down.

Depending on your plan, you can also use Version history to restore past versions of a page, very helpful after big refactors or accidental edits.

6. Locking Pages and Databases

Locking a page isn’t about permissions, it’s about preventing accidental edits.

For pages (like a company wiki):

• Open the page.
• Click the three dots (•••).
• Turn on Lock page / Lock wiki.

Now anyone with edit access will need to unlock the page before changing content, which helps keep important documentation tidy.

For databases:

• Locking prevents people from adding new properties or views.
• You can still add and edit pages inside the database.

Once your database structure is set, locking it is a simple way to avoid “property sprawl” over time.

7. Button Effects (Confetti and More)

Buttons in Notion can do a lot, from duplicating templates to inserting blocks. A smaller, fun detail is click effects.

Example setup:

• Add a /button.
• Give it a name like “New Checklist”.
• Add an action
• Open the button menu and choose a Click effect ⇒ Confetti.

Now, every time you click a button you get a tiny celebration. It’s a small detail, but it can make recurring workflows feel more enjoyable.

8. Grouping by Date

Notion’s grouping options become very powerful when you group by date.

In a table view:

• Go to View → Group.
• Choose your date property (for example, Due date).
• Choose a grouping style: Relative, Day, Week, Month, or Year.

You’ll see tasks automatically bucketed into ranges like “Next 7 days,” “This month,” or specific days and weeks.

In a board view:

• Switch grouping from Status to your Due date.
• Use Relative or Day to see cards organized by time instead of workflow.

This is perfect for visualizing workloads and deadlines across projects.

9. Drag-and-Drop from Brainstorm to Database

You don’t always want to think in tables right away. Sometimes it’s easier to brainstorm as plain text and structure things later.

With Notion, you can:

• Brainstorm tasks or ideas as regular text blocks above a database.
• When you’re ready, grab the left handle of each block.
• Drag it into the database below (or into another linked view).

Notion will automatically turn those blocks into new database entries.

You can also drag tasks between filtered views—for example, dropping a task into a “Done” linked view that only shows completed items. Once you drop it, it disappears from your active list and appears in the done view.

10. Three Underrated Slash Commands

Finally, three slash commands that are easy to overlook but extremely useful:

/breadcrumbs

Adds a breadcrumb trail anywhere on the page so you can see exactly where the page lives in your workspace hierarchy. Great for deep client workspaces or nested systems.

/table of contents

Generates a clickable table of contents based on your headings. You can place it at the top, bottom, or even inside a toggle to keep layouts clean.

/synced block

Creates a block you can copy across multiple pages. Edit it once, and every instance updates.

This is perfect for:

• Mission statements
• Repeated instructions
• Shared navigation blocks

By layering in even a few of these features, your workspace will feel more intentional, easier to navigate, and much more enjoyable to use day to day! If you’d prefer a video guide you can find it below: