Pick from a list of items in Zaps

Written by Owner

Updated at August 20th, 2025

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Table of Contents

1. Add a Formatter step to your Zap 2. Set up your transform Pick a custom position from a list 3. Test your step

Available on plans:

Free

Pro

Team

Enterprise

With Formatter's Pick from list transform, you can select a specific value from a list generated by an app.

Example

If a survey field collects a respondent's top 5 vegetables but you only want to track the top vegetable, you can use the Pick from list transform to create a new field that contains only that item.

1. Add a Formatter step to your Zap

In the Zap outline, click the Action step or the plus sign + to add a new action. A dialog box will open.
In the search box, search for and select Formatter. The right sidebar will open to the Setup tab.
Click the Action event dropdown menu and select Utilities.
Click Continue.

2. Set up your transform

Click the Transform dropdown menu and select Pick from list.
You can select from pre-made options or use a static list position.
- First item, last item, or a random item: use the options available from the Operation dropdown menu.
- Any other item: to pick an item at any other position, click the three dot icon beside the Operation field and select Custom. Learn how to select a custom position.
In the Input field, select a field from a previous step that contains the list you want to pick from, or enter a list of values. More fields will appear when the first one is used.
Optional: in the Default field, you can enter a value to use if no value is found.
Click Continue.

Pick a custom position from a list

The Operation dropdown menu offers three predefined positions:

Choose first.
Choose last.
Choose random.

To pick an item in any other position, you must use the Custom option in the Operation field, and reference the item by its list position:

On the Operation field, click the three dot icon and select Custom.
You can now enter the number of the position in the text field.

The first list item will always be 0. The second item is 1, the third item is 2, and so on.

You can also use negative numbers to count from the end of the list. -1 will pick the last item, -2 will pick the second-last item,and -3 will pick the third-last item, and so on.

3. Test your step

Click Test step. If the transformation is successful, the step will return one of the values from the input field or the default value (if you set one).

Once you’ve set your Formatter step to pick a value from a list, you can add other actions to use the result in your Zap.

Pick from a list of items in Zaps

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1. Add a Formatter step to your Zap

2. Set up your transform

Pick a custom position from a list

3. Test your step

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