In our Page view events, we used to have a property called “Operating System”. Now it’s called “Platform”. If I search for this property in the property filter or when creating a custom property I can’t find the old property name, only the new one. I need to find both
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You’re likely running into two Mixpanel behaviors: 1. Hidden / inactive properties in the UI menus
- Properties can be hidden in Lexicon, in which case they won’t appear in dropdowns for filters or custom properties, even though they still exist in the raw data. [Hidden events; Lexicon overview]
- Properties that haven’t been sent in the last 28 days are also hidden from dropdowns, but can still be searched by exact name. [Hidden events]2. Renaming vs. creating a new property
The docs don’t explicitly say how you renamed “Operating System” to “Platform” (SDK change vs. Lexicon display name vs. merge), so there are two possibilities:
- If engineering changed the raw property name in the tracking code (from Operating System to Platform), then “Operating System” will stop receiving data and may now be hidden as “inactive” in menus. [Hidden events; Manage naming changes]
- If you only changed the display name in Lexicon, the raw name is the same and you should still be able to find that property in Lexicon and in reports under its (possibly merged) definition. [Lexicon overview; Merging data]
How to get both properties visible again
1. Check Lexicon for both properties
- Go to Data Management → Lexicon → Event Properties. [Lexicon overview]
- Search for:
- Operating System
- Platform
- Confirm:
- Status (Visible / Hidden / Dropped / Merged) [Lexicon overview]
- Whether one is marked as Merged into the other. [Merging data]2. If “Operating System” is hidden or merged
- If it’s Hidden: change its status to Visible so it appears in menus again. [Lexicon data clean up]
- If it’s Merged into “Platform”:
- You’ll only see the merged property in menus under the chosen merged name. To work with them separately again, you’d need to Unmerge the properties in Lexicon. [Merging data]3. If “Operating System” is just inactive
- If it exists in Lexicon but has no recent data, it may be hidden from dropdowns. In that case:
- In a filter/breakdown menu, type the exact property name (case sensitive) to search for it. [Hidden events]
- Or send a single new event with the old property name (“Operating System”) so it becomes “active” again and reappears in menus. [Hidden events]4. Going forward
- Decide whether you want:
- Two separate properties (“Operating System” and “Platform”), or
- One unified property (e.g. merge them into “Platform” and use that everywhere). [Manage naming changes; Merging data]
- Document this in your taxonomy and Lexicon so everyone knows which one to use. [Standardize taxonomy]If you can share whether the rename was done in code or only in Mixpanel (Lexicon), I can narrow down which of these steps will solve it for you.
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Given “Platform” is a new property and not a rename of “Operating System”, there are two main reasons why you might not see “Operating System” in filters / custom properties: 1. It’s hidden or merged in Lexicon
- Go to Data Management → Lexicon → Event Properties and search for Operating System. [Lexicon overview]
- Check the Status column:
- If it’s Hidden, select it and click Unhide so it becomes visible again in menus. [Hiding data]
- If it’s Merged into another property (e.g. into “Platform”), you’ll only see the merged name in the UI. To get both back as separate properties, select the merged property and click Unmerge. [Merging data]2. It’s inactive (no recent data)
- Event properties that haven’t been sent in the last 28 days are hidden from dropdown menus, but still exist in the raw data. [Check hidden]
- To surface “Operating System” again:
- In a filter/breakdown menu, type the exact property name (case sensitive) to search for it, even if it’s not in the list. [Check hidden]
- Or send one new Page View event that includes the Operating System property; once it’s seen again, it will reappear in dropdowns. [Check hidden]After doing this, you should be able to use both “Operating System” and “Platform” in filters and when defining custom properties.
kapa.ai is still learning and improving, please let me know how I did by reacting below.
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Let me check the knowledge base for you again. One moment! 📚
“Operating System” was one of Mixpanel’s default properties that client-side SDKs can automatically collect (e.g. $os / “Operating System”). [Default user props; Default event props]When you say you “moved to Mixpanel Actions,” it likely means your current implementation is no longer sending that old property on your Page View events, so: 1. The old property is now “inactive” in the UI menus
- Event and property dropdowns hide properties that haven’t been sent in the last 28 days, even though they still exist in raw data. [Check hidden]
- To try to use it:
- In a filter/breakdown/custom property builder, type Operating System exactly (case sensitive) in the property search box. Inactive properties can still be found by exact search. [Check hidden]2. Check Lexicon to see its status
- Go to Data Management → Lexicon → Event Properties and search for Operating System. [Lexicon overview]
- If you find it:
- If Status = Hidden, select it and click Unhide so it appears in menus again. [Hiding data]
- If Status = Dropped, new data for that property is being blocked; you can Undrop it, but past data is still there and usable. [Dropping data]
- If Status = Merged, it has been merged into another property name; you’d need to Unmerge to see both separately. [Merging data]3. If you truly can’t find it anywhere
The docs don’t describe any automatic deletion of old properties when switching to Actions, only hiding/inactivity behavior. If:
- You can’t find “Operating System” via exact search in filters, and
- It doesn’t appear in Lexicon (even when filtering for hidden/dropped/merged),
then the knowledge sources don’t explain another mechanism that would remove it entirely. In that case, I’m not able to say more confidently what happened beyond hidden/inactive/merged/dropped scenarios, and you may need to contact Mixpanel Support with your project details. [Lexicon data clean up]To get both properties usable now: - Use “Platform” going forward in your Actions setup. - Surface “Operating System” via Lexicon (unhide/undrop/unmerge) and/or exact-name search so you can still query historical data that used that property.
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