Power Apps: Modern Combo Box Overhaul

Key insights

• Modern Controls received a major quality update centered on the Combo Box, which fixes long-standing reliability and usability issues shown in the video.
  Reza Dorrani demonstrates this as the most impactful change for canvas apps.
• The Combo Box now scales far beyond the old ~800-item practical limit and can handle several thousand items directly.
  For very large datasets, the new SearchText output lets makers perform server-side filtering to keep apps responsive.
• Selection behavior improved: users can clear choices by clicking a selected item, and multi-select patterns now work as expected.
  This enables reliable multi-select patterns like the People Picker and smoother form interactions with SharePoint.
• Form and data fixes ensure selections persist during SubmitForm() and reset correctly with Reset().
  The update also fixes many-to-one relationship handling for Dataverse and improves using Combo Box inside forms.
• Event and usability changes reduce unnecessary triggers: OnChange fires more precisely and Text Input fires on blur, improving performance.
  Controls now include consistent property names and mobile-friendly defaults that boost developer productivity.
• Practical benefits: builders gain better performance, fewer workarounds, and faster styling via consistent properties and studio menus.
  Use the updated controls from Power Apps Studio to simplify app maintenance and scale selection experiences to enterprise data.

Overview

In a recent YouTube video, Reza Dorrani reviews a major February 2026 update to Power Apps modern controls, with particular focus on what he calls the biggest change so far: the revamped Combo Box. The update aims to resolve long-standing limits and bugs that designers and makers faced, and the video walks through both the fixes and the new features in real use cases. Consequently, this change could alter how many canvas apps handle selection, search, and multi-select patterns. Therefore, the update is notable not only for its technical fixes but also for its practical impact on everyday app building.

Key Changes in the Combo Box

The most visible improvement is that the Combo Box now supports several thousand items without forced workarounds, which directly addresses the previous ~800 item practical cap. In addition, the control exposes a new SearchText output property that enables server-side filtering, allowing makers to delegate large dataset queries to their data source and maintain performance. Moreover, selection behavior has been corrected so that clicking a selected item can now clear it, which finally matches typical user expectations for multi-select and deselect flows. As a result, common patterns like the multi-select People Picker work more reliably inside forms and when bound to sources such as SharePoint.

Broader Modern Controls Update

Beyond the Combo Box, the release improves reliability and consistency across nine controls, including Text Input, Number Input, Date Picker, Radio, Link, and others. Changes include clearer OnChange semantics, restored classic capabilities like max length for text inputs, and mobile-friendly defaults such as larger touch targets to improve usability on phones and tablets. The controls also adopt standardized property names and more predictable theming, which simplifies styling and reduces surprises for makers who mix modern and classic controls. Consequently, the update aims to make modern controls a safer default choice for production apps.

Impact on Forms and Data

Crucially, the update fixes the way the Combo Box interacts with form operations: selections persist through SubmitForm() and clear correctly with Reset(), resolving a frequent source of form bugs. This improved integration benefits scenarios where selection fields are bound to relational data, such as many-to-one relationships in Dataverse or SharePoint person columns, and reduces the need for custom code. Furthermore, server-side search via SearchText lets the control scale to enterprise datasets without sacrificing responsiveness on the client. Thus, makers can avoid heavy client-side filtering hacks while keeping UX smooth for end users.

Tradeoffs and Implementation Challenges

While the update brings important gains, it also introduces tradeoffs that teams must consider. For instance, relying on server-side filtering using SearchText improves scalability but requires careful attention to delegation limits, query performance, and backend indexing; without those, search can still feel slow. Additionally, defaulting to multi-select behavior and changing event semantics can affect existing apps, so developers must test forms and custom logic to avoid regressions. Therefore, adopting the new controls quickly is attractive, yet doing so safely requires planned testing and possible refactoring.

Guidance for Makers and Next Steps

Reza Dorrani’s walkthrough emphasizes practical ways to adopt the update: test modern controls in a staging app, validate data delegation for your busiest lists, and update form logic where selection behavior has changed. He also demonstrates how the restored behaviors simplify common patterns like multi-select people pickers, making them easier to implement without workarounds. In light of these changes, teams should prioritize high-impact screens that previously suffered from the Combo Box limits and plan a phased rollout to catch any unexpected issues. Ultimately, the update reduces technical debt for many makers, but careful rollout mitigates new risks.

Conclusion

Overall, the video by Reza Dorrani highlights a meaningful quality milestone for modern controls in Power Apps, with the Combo Box receiving the most significant attention for improved scale, search, and selection behavior. The release balances improved user experience and developer productivity against the need to manage backend delegation and compatibility for existing apps. Therefore, while the changes make modern controls far more practical for production apps, they also demand careful testing and planned adoption. Consequently, makers who prepare accordingly can expect fewer workarounds and a smoother path to building robust canvas apps.

Keywords

Power Apps combo box update, Power Apps modern controls, Microsoft combo box fixes, Power Apps combo box new features, Power Apps controls update, Power Apps combo box accessibility, Power Apps form control improvements, Power Apps combo box performance