How to Set Nottion Database Property to Show Only on Hover in Card View

When you work with a Notion database in Card View, every property you add to a card appears by default. This can make your cards look cluttered, especially when you have many properties like tags, dates, or formulas. Notion does not offer a direct toggle to hide properties until you hover over a card. However, you can achieve this behavior by adjusting property visibility settings and using the card preview layout. This article explains how to configure your Notion database so that certain properties appear only when you hover over a card in Card View.

How Card View Handles Property Display in Notion

Notion’s Card View displays database items as cards in a board or gallery layout. Each card shows the title and any properties you have selected in the database layout settings. By default, all properties that are enabled in the layout appear on every card. There is no built-in “show on hover” option in the database property settings. The behavior you want is achieved by combining the card preview setting with property visibility toggles. When you set the card preview to show only the cover and title, other properties are hidden. However, when you hover over a card, Notion displays a tooltip that reveals all properties associated with that item. This tooltip appears automatically when you hold your mouse over any card. The key is to hide properties from the card surface itself so that the hover tooltip becomes the only way to see them.

Steps to Configure Properties to Show Only on Hover

1. Open your database in Card View
   Navigate to the page that contains your database. Click the database title to open it. Ensure the view is set to Card View. If you are in another view like Table or List, click the view name at the top left and select Card View from the dropdown menu.
2. Open the Layout Options menu
   Click the three-dot icon in the top-right corner of the database. In the dropdown menu, select Layout. This opens the Layout Options panel on the right side of the screen.
3. Set Card Preview to Show Only Cover
   In the Layout Options panel, locate the Card Preview section. Click the dropdown and select None. This removes all property previews from the card surface, leaving only the card cover image and the title visible. If you want to keep the title visible, do not change the Title setting. The Title setting remains separate from Card Preview.
4. Disable property visibility for non-essential properties
   Still in the Layout Options panel, find the Properties section. Each property has a toggle switch next to it. Turn off the toggle for every property you want to hide from the card surface. For example, if you have a Status property and a Date property, turn both toggles off. When a property toggle is off, that property does not appear on the card at all. The property data still exists in the database. It is just hidden from the card view.
5. Enable the hover tooltip
   By default, Notion shows a hover tooltip when you mouse over a card. This tooltip displays the title and all properties, regardless of their visibility toggle state. If you have turned off property visibility in step 4, those properties still appear in the hover tooltip. To verify this, hover your mouse over any card. You should see a popup showing the card title and all properties. If you do not see the hover tooltip, check that your browser or Notion app is up to date. The hover tooltip cannot be disabled in Card View.
6. Adjust card size for a cleaner look
   In the Layout Options panel, find the Card Size dropdown. Select Small to reduce the card height. With small cards, even less surface area is available for properties, reinforcing the hover-only behavior. Medium or Large card sizes leave more empty space, but properties remain hidden because you turned off their visibility toggles.

Common Mistakes and Limitations When Hiding Properties

Properties still appear on the card after turning off toggles

This happens when the Card Preview setting is not set to None. If Card Preview is set to Page Content or Default, Notion automatically shows some properties even if their individual toggles are off. Go back to Layout Options and set Card Preview to None. Then refresh the page by clicking the refresh icon near the database title.

Hover tooltip does not show all properties

The hover tooltip always shows all properties that exist in the database. It does not respect property visibility toggles. If you see fewer properties than expected, check that those properties are actually added to the database. Open the database properties menu by clicking the Properties button at the top of the database. Ensure the missing properties are listed there. If a property is not added to the database, it cannot appear in the hover tooltip.

Hover tooltip appears only after a delay or does not appear on mobile

The hover tooltip is a desktop-only feature. On mobile devices, there is no hover action. Users on phones or tablets will not see the tooltip. To view properties on mobile, they must open each card individually. On desktop, the tooltip appears after about one second of hovering. If it does not appear, try refreshing the page or restarting the Notion desktop app.

Property visibility toggle affects all views, not just Card View

When you turn off a property toggle in Layout Options, that change applies only to the current view. Other views of the same database, such as Table View or Board View, are not affected. If you want to hide the same property in all views, you must repeat the steps for each view.

Notion Card View Property Display Settings Compared

Item	Card Preview = None	Card Preview = Default
Properties shown on card	None (only title and cover)	First few properties as preview
Hover tooltip behavior	Shows all properties	Shows all properties
Best use case	Clean cards, hover reveals details	Quick glance at key properties
Mobile compatibility	Properties hidden until card opened	Properties partially visible

You can now configure your Notion database to show properties only when you hover over a card in Card View. Start by setting Card Preview to None and turning off property toggles for the properties you want to hide. The hover tooltip will reveal all property data when you mouse over a card. Remember that this setup works only on desktop browsers and the Notion desktop app. For mobile users, properties remain hidden until they open the card. A useful next step is to create a duplicate view of your database with a different name so you can switch between the clean hover-only layout and a full-property layout without losing your original view.