If you open the Google Tag Manager user interface and browser your tags, triggers, and variables, you might notice that the UI now has two new features:

  1. Pagination, where only 50 results are shown per page

  2. A quick search / filter bar at the top of each list, which lets you narrow the list down to results that match your query

Pagination might be a nuisance in large containers, but it was implemented to improve performance. Fetching the list of assets and rendering them on the screen can be a pretty hefty amount of API work, especially if the container is bloated. By introducing pagination, only 50 items are processed at a time, which speeds up the UI. However, being forced to plow through pages of assets can get tedious.

That’s why the quick search / filter bar is so useful. It lets you filter the page to show results that match your query, regardless of what page the result is actually on. So it’s a great way to quickly access your results.

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Tip 63: Filtering through pages of data

Pagination and quick search filter

This tip is as simple as it gets. If you have more than 50 tags, or 50 triggers, or 50 variables, then the respective lists in your Google Tag Manager user interface will be paginated so that only 50 results are shown per page.

To find what you want quickly, you can use the quick search / filter bar at the top of each list table. This will filter the results to show only those that match your query.

And here’s another tip. You can use the forward slash (/) key to place focus on the search field. You can try this with other products, too, as it’s a fairly universal way of focusing on a search / filter box. Note that this requires that you have a “natural” forward slash key in your keyboard layout. So folks in Finland, for example, are somewhat out of luck, because forward slash is typed with SHIFT+7, which doesn’t work in the GTM UI. Nevertheless, if your keyboard has a number pad, you should find the forward slash key on that. Let me know in the comments if you can access the quick search some other way, and if it’s been localized in your own keyboard layout.