Meteor - collection.find() always returns all fields

your syntax is off a bit, it should be

CollectionName.find({}, {fields: {'onlyThisField':1}});

or

CollectionName.find({}, {fields: {'everythingButThisField':0}});

your template does indeed control what data is displayed, but there are still many scenarios where field limiting makes sense - privacy of data or efficiency (some fields of all records, all fields of the 'current' record) are two common ones

you didnt mention it, but this usually is within a publish function - see http://docs.meteor.com/#meteor_publish - the fields modifier is also available on the client, but there it does not limit data sent down to client, just to the template - server side field reduction/selection has different benefits

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double check that you've removed the autopublish package too, however you should see a warning if you have that active and write your own publish functions, which is where you would most commonly use fields

First, if you want to control some fields in Collection.find()，you can try to do it this way:

CollectionName.find({}, {fields: {field:1}});

but it was working only on the server.

Or try this:

On the server:

Meteor.publish("myCollection", function () {    return SvseTree.find({},{fields: {field:1}});});

On the client:

Meteor.subscribe("myCollection");

then run meteor remove autopublish.

Second, if you want to get Array of Collection.find(), try to do it: Collection.find().fetch();