Create a custom Text field on any standard or custom object through Object Manager. The flow is the same in Lightning Experience whether the object is Account, a custom object, or anything in between.
- Open Object Manager
From Setup, go to Object Manager and select the object you want to add the field to. Click the Fields and Relationships section, then click New.
- Choose the Text data type
On the data type screen, select Text, then click Next. Pick Text, not Text Area, when you want a single line capped at 255 characters.
- Set label, length, and options
Enter a field label, which auto-fills the API name, and set the Length from 1 to 255. Optionally mark the field as Unique, External ID, or case sensitive, and add a default value if you need one.
- Set security and layouts
Choose which profiles can see and edit the field through field-level security, then select the page layouts where it should appear. Click Save to create the field.
The human-readable name shown on layouts and reports. It auto-generates the API name, which you can adjust before saving.
The maximum number of characters, from 1 to 255. Setting it deliberately documents the expected content rather than defaulting everything to 255.
The unique developer name used in code, SOQL, and integrations. It must be unique on the object and cannot start with a number.
- You cannot exceed 255 characters with the Text type. If you need more, choose Text Area, Long Text Area, or Rich Text Area instead.
- Marking an existing field Unique fails if duplicate values already exist, so clean the data first.
- Switching a populated Text field to case sensitive can expose duplicates that were previously treated as identical.
- Plain Text fields without Unique or External ID are not indexed, so filters with a leading wildcard can be slow on large objects.