SPO-ASSIST

How to Find the Internal Name of a SharePoint Online Column

If you've ever written a CAML query, a PnP PowerShell script, or a Power Automate flow against SharePoint, you've hit this problem: the column's display name isn't what the system actually uses internally. You need the internal name — and SharePoint doesn't show it to you directly.

Here are the ways to find it.

Method 1: List settings + URL inspection

  1. Go to the list, open List settings.
  2. Under Columns, click the column you need.
  3. Look at the URL in your browser's address bar — it will contain a Field= parameter with the internal name, usually URL-encoded (spaces become %5F or _x0020_).
  4. Decode it manually if needed — _x0020_ represents a space.

This works but is slow, and manually decoding encoded characters is error-prone, especially with special characters.

Method 2: SharePoint REST API

Query the list's fields endpoint directly:

https://yourtenant.sharepoint.com/sites/yoursite/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('YourListName')/fields?$select=Title,InternalName

This returns every field's display name next to its internal name in one call. It's reliable, but you need API access and it's not something you'll want to do every time you're mid-task in the browser.

Method 3: PnP PowerShell

If you're already in a PowerShell session:

Get-PnPField -List "YourListName" | Select Title, InternalName

Fast if you're already connected to the site, but it's a context switch away from the browser.

Method 4: One click, right on the page

The methods above all work, but they pull you out of what you're doing — into devtools, a REST client, or a PowerShell window. SPO-Assist surfaces internal names directly on the list settings page as you're viewing it, no URL decoding or separate query required. If you're doing this more than once a week, it's the fastest path.

Common gotchas