# How to keep \`selected fields\` fixed
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-keep-selected-fields-fixed/269853
**Category:** Kibana
**Created:** [April 12, 2021, 8:51am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-keep-selected-fields-fixed/269853 "2021-04-12T08:51:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@its-ogawa](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/its-ogawa)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2021, 8:51am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-keep-selected-fields-fixed/269853/1 "2021-04-12T08:51:15Z")
When you check log items from Kibana, you can fix the items with `selected fields`.
This setting is very useful, but it gets lost when you close your browser. Is there a way to keep this?
---
### Author:  [@its-ogawa](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/its-ogawa)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2021, 10:42am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-keep-selected-fields-fixed/269853/2 "2021-04-14T10:42:08Z")
Select the item you want to display in the column in Discover from the Available fields, and press the Save button (Save visualization?) in the upper right corner. to save the object. This is probably the most common method. Maybe.
Is this the right way?
How do you generally expect to use Kibana in such a case?
---
### Author:  [@flash1293](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/flash1293)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2021, 11:27am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-keep-selected-fields-fixed/269853/3 "2021-04-14T11:27:40Z")
I assume you are referring to the discover application and the fields which are shown as columns.
There are three separate ways to do this:
- Save a saved search (that's what you did) It's a nice approach because you can save multiple "views" this way and easily switch between them by using the "Open" button
- Configure your columns, then bookmark the current URL. Discover puts this configuration into the hash part of the URL as well, so that's another way of storing it. If you navigate to the bookmark later, it will load this configuration from URL
- If you always want to use these default columns, you can also use the `defaultColumns` advanced setting. Be aware that this is a space wide setting that will affect Discover even if you change the index pattern and the columns don't match.
---
### Author:  [@its-ogawa](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/its-ogawa)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2021, 1:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-keep-selected-fields-fixed/269853/4 "2021-04-15T01:26:26Z")
Thank you for your comment.
I am relieved to know that the usage I have implemented is correct.
I see that I can bookmark the URL. This is very easy.
As for `defaultColumns`, are you assuming that the same fields are present in all index patterns?
However, in my case (and I think it's a common case), I have different index patterns with different referenced fields.
Is it a good approach to set `defaultColumns` in that case?
---
### Author:  [@flash1293](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/flash1293)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2021, 7:33am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-keep-selected-fields-fixed/269853/5 "2021-04-15T07:33:05Z")
> However, in my case (and I think it's a common case), I have different index patterns with different referenced fields.
> Is it a good approach to set defaultColumns in that case?
I don't think so, it's more of a niche option if you are dealing with very uniform data. Bookmark and saved searches are the way to go.
---
### Author:  [@its-ogawa](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/its-ogawa)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2021, 8:15am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-keep-selected-fields-fixed/269853/6 "2021-04-15T08:15:50Z")
I understand.
Initially, I was collecting logs of the same format from several servers.
In this case, the logs are uniform, so it seems that `defaultColumns` can be used.
However, now we are collecting logs in different formats.
In this case, it would be better to use bookmarks or saved searches.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2021, 8:16am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-keep-selected-fields-fixed/269853/7 "2021-05-13T08:16:00Z")
This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.