Create Interactive Multiselect Columns in Streamlit

📘 Introduction

Streamlit makes it easy to build interactive apps — and its st.data_editor() widget lets users edit data directly inside your app. But what if a single cell needs multiple selections, like tags, skills, or categories? 🤔

That’s where st.column_config.MultiselectColumn comes in! It allows you to add multi-select dropdowns inside your editable tables — simple, intuitive, and perfect for dynamic data editing. In this guide, you’ll learn how to use it step by step. 🚀

💡 Why Use a Multiselect Column?

You might need users to:

✅ Assign multiple labels or tags
✅ Choose several skills or technologies
✅ Select multiple categories per item

✅ Prerequisites

Before starting, make sure you have the following:

🐍☑️ Python installed
📦☑️ Pip installed
🌐☑️ A virtual environment (venv) created and activated

📦1️⃣ Install Libraries

Install the following Python packages using pip:

pip install streamlit pandas

📥2️⃣ Import Libraries

Start by importing the required Python modules:

import streamlit as st
import pandas as pd

✍️3️⃣ Create a Basic Editable Table

Let’s start simple — create an editable DataFrame.

st.title("🎯 Multiselect Column in Streamlit")
st.write("This app demonstrates how to use `st.column_config.MultiselectColumn` to create interactive multi-select fields inside tables.")

# Sample data
data = pd.DataFrame({
    "Name": ["Alice", "Bob", "Charlie"],
    "Skills": [["Python"], ["JavaScript", "HTML"], []],
})

# Basic data editor
edited_data = st.data_editor(data)
st.write("Edited Data:")
st.write(edited_data)

Run the app:

streamlit run app.py

⚡4️⃣ Add a Multiselect Column

Now configure the column using st.column_config.MultiselectColumn: