Deleting a Drop Down List Option

My client has asked me to simplify a drop down list on an already populated form.

The current options:

Photo
Photo - scanned

are to be simplified to just photo. I have updated the records via the database so they all say just ‘Photo’. If I remove the unwanted option ‘Photo - scanned’ from the drop down list, will it change or remove data from the db?

Hi Shelley,

When testing locally, if you’ve already changed the records on the DB it shouldn’t change nor remove data from the DB when you change the dropdown value from Photo - scanned to Photo.

You could create a test form with a dropdown on your site just to double-check on your end

I hope this helps!

Best,

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Shelley, as Dario pointed, removing choices from a field don’t delete data in your database, only removing the field itself would delete data from your entries (a warning popup is shown before this when you remove a field).

Deleting an existing choice would affect only to the ability of being able to export entries where the value saved was the one for the deleted choice. But if you already updated the database to change all the values saved to “Photo”, you should be fine.

In any case, doing a backup before important changes is always a good practice.

2 Likes

Thanks Dario & Samuel,

Logically I didn’t think the data would disappear but just wasn’t sure. I’ve removed the drop down options not required and nothing exploded - so all good :slightly_smiling_face:

Many thanks

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