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By default, all fields in a document are displayed in search results. Use displayedAttributes to control which fields are returned when a document matches a query. Fields not listed in displayedAttributes are still stored in the database and remain searchable if configured. You can add them back to the displayed list at any time.

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Set displayed attributes

Suppose you manage a movies database and only want search results to show the title, overview, release date, and genres: 
curl \
  -X PUT 'MEILISEARCH_URL/indexes/movies/settings/displayed-attributes' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-binary '[
      "title",
      "overview",
      "genres",
      "release_date"
    ]'
With this configuration, fields like id, poster_url, or internal_rating are excluded from search results even if they exist in the document.

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When to limit displayed attributes

  • Performance: reducing the number of displayed fields makes response payloads smaller, especially when documents contain large text fields or many attributes
  • Security: hide internal fields (admin notes, cost prices, internal IDs) from the search response without removing them from the index
  • Clarity: return only the fields your UI needs, reducing frontend parsing work

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Reset displayed attributes

To restore the default behavior (all fields displayed), reset the setting: 
curl \
  -X DELETE 'MEILISEARCH_URL/indexes/movies/settings/displayed-attributes' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer MEILISEARCH_KEY'
All fields are always stored in the database regardless of display settings. Making a field non-displayed does not delete it. You can also use attributesToRetrieve at search time to limit which displayed fields are returned for a specific query, without changing the index setting.

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Next steps

Configure searchable attributes

Control which fields are searched and their ranking priority

Highlight search results

Show matched terms in the displayed fields