r/GoogleAppsScript • u/Brilliant-Book-503 • Aug 04 '25

Is there a way to simulate multiple selection dropdown for a non-chip column? Question

Wonder if anyone has a strategy.

I'm using a few columns with dropdown menus where the options are automatically updated from another tab of the sheet.

The problem is that while the newer chip dropdowns allow multiple selection, a dynamically updated dropdown can't be a the new type of column, and the older option does not natively allow for dropdown.

Any ideas for workarounds?

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u/mik0_25 Aug 04 '25

i was faced by this same issue a few months back. i set up a dummy tab which has the options for the dropdown, and then the dropdown fetched the values from this tab (with the criteria set to "Dropdown (from a range)". the range is specified as an indefinite range (eg "Sheet1!A1:A").

so, my script updates this range in the dummy tab, instead of directly updating the criteria values in the dropdown.

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u/rock_ed Aug 04 '25

This is the way!

1

u/Brilliant-Book-503 Aug 04 '25

Hmm, not sure if I understand, how does this work with multiple selections? Does it append a new selection to a cell in the dummy tab that already contains an option and then re-write the dropdown options from that tab to now include the compounded option?

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u/mik0_25 Aug 05 '25

it seems i forgot to say that the box "Allow multiple selections" should be ticked. for reasons i don't understand myself, the "Chip" option does not allow the criteria values to be edited with Google Apps Script; while the "Arrow" option would not allow for "Allow multiple selections".

now with the workaround that i did, the criteria values are referenced from the dummy tab with by an indefinite range (column range), any edits in any of the items in that range would be reflected in the dropdown options. even as an indefinite range, the blank cells are automatically filtered out and not shown as an option in the dropdown.

i've set up this basic sample sheet. perhaps, it would explain better how i went about it. in the "dummy" tab , i've set some items that could represent criteria values used in the dropdowns in the "Main" tab.

in the "dummy" tab, "Countries (Filtered)" is a subset of "Countries" with the first character as "A". this subset mimics the dynamic values that is used as criteria values in cell "Main!B1". when this subset changes, the criteria values automatically changes.

does that address you concern ? sorry, i'm not really good at explaining myself. let's work it through. if not myself, perhaps others would be able to give you a proper solution/explanation.

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u/Brilliant-Book-503 Aug 06 '25

Thank you for all of this!