Salesforce Metadata Types that Do Not Support Wildcard Characters in Package.xml
November 16, 2021 / Leave a Comment / DevOps
When we want to retrieve or deploy metadata to a Salesforce Org, we use package.xml either with ANT command or using SFDX. And when retrieving metadata from a Salesforce org, it is quite common to use wildcard character asterisk (*) to retrieve everything of that metadata type.

For example, the following is used in package.xml to retrieve metadata about all custom objects.

<?xml version=1.0 encoding=UTF-8 standalone=yes?>
<Package xmlns=http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata>
    <types>
        <members>*</members>
        <name>CustomObject</name>
    </types>    
    <version>53.0</version>
</Package>
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But do note that some of the metadata type does not support wildcard characters. And even if you put wildcard character in your package.xml, nothing will be retrieved. These metadata types include:

ActionOverride
AnalyticSnapshot
CustomField
CustomLabel
Dashboard
Document
EmailTemplate
Folder
FolderShare
GlobalPicklistValue
Letterhead
ListView
Metadata
MetadataWithContent
NamedFilter
Package
PersonalJouneySettings
Picklist
ProfileActionOverride
RecordType
Report
SearchLayouts
SearchingSettings
SharingBaseRule
SharingReason
SharingRecalculation
StandardValueSet
Territory2Settings
ValidationRule
WebLink
References & Useful URLs
Metadata API Developer Guide -> Metadata Types