# How to retrieve meta data in collection

**URL:** <https://community.directus.com/t/how-to-retrieve-meta-data-in-collection/731>\
**Category:** Help\
**Tags:** api\
**Created:** [July 11, 2025, 4:53am UTC](https://community.directus.com/t/how-to-retrieve-meta-data-in-collection/731 "2025-07-11T04:53:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cyrdodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@cyrdodi](https://community.directus.com/u/cyrdodi)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 4:53am UTC](https://community.directus.com/t/how-to-retrieve-meta-data-in-collection/731/1 "2025-07-11T04:53:16Z")

</div>

How can I retrieve metadata such as the total number of items in a collection to use for pagination? The documentation mentions an `meta` query parameter, but there’s no example provided. When I try using it, the `meta` data doesn’t appear.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Nik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6de8d8/32.png) [@Nik](https://community.directus.com/u/Nik)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2025, 6:56am UTC](https://community.directus.com/t/how-to-retrieve-meta-data-in-collection/731/2 "2025-07-11T06:56:20Z")

</div>

Metadata is marked as deprecated

 ![Snag_6f2c1ff](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/directus/original/1X/c7adb00de45664d72f8b39f05c2b869e89400fc2.png)

Although REST request `?meta=total_count` still working on my Directus v11.8.0, i guess you should use aggregate functions to query the total number of items.

REST  
`?aggregate[count]=*`

SDK

```auto
import { createDirectus, rest, aggregate } from '@directus/sdk';

const client = createDirectus('https://directus.example.com').with(rest());

const result = await client.request(
	aggregate('articles', {
		aggregate: { count: '*' },
	})
);

```