F
Filament•7d ago
Grogu

Searching encrypted columns

Is it possible to search encrypted columns in filament tables? In my DB, i encrypted a users first_name, preferred_name and last_name, then have a full_name attribute. Here is the code I use to display the users name in the table, but search just doesn't work - I assume because search works on the DB, where the columns are encrypted: 
Tables\Columns\TextColumn::make('full_name')
    ->label('Name')
    ->searchable(['first_name', 'last_name', 'preferred_name'])
    ->sortable()
Tables\Columns\TextColumn::make('full_name')
    ->label('Name')
    ->searchable(['first_name', 'last_name', 'preferred_name'])
    ->sortable()
1 Reply
herakles0910
herakles0910•7d ago
Why It Doesn’t Work Filament’s ->searchable() relies on SQL-level filtering, meaning the search query is executed on the database side. Since encrypted fields are stored as ciphertext, SQL cannot match or search them — the database doesn’t “know” what the decrypted values are. What You Can Do You can’t directly search encrypted columns in SQL unless you: Index unencrypted duplicates of the fields (not secure unless access-controlled carefully). Use client-side or Laravel-level filtering after fetching and decrypting the records. Possible Workaround (Laravel Collection Filtering): If you can fetch all records first, then filter using Laravel (in memory), you can do You’re right: it doesn’t work because SQL can’t search encrypted data. Consider decrypting on the Laravel side and filtering in PHP, or rethink the encryption/search approach with security trade-offs in mind.

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