Change list lookup source and retain existing data

[kevyn]

Hi there,

I have a Plumsail lookup (Office365) attached to 'LibraryA' which currently looks at 'listA' for its data - working well, has thousands of docs data.

What I want to do is change the lookup list to 'ListB' - which has some of the same column names, but many additional columns also included. I've found that if I simple change the lookup list, all my existing data on the document library is removed.

Is there any way to change the lookup source, and retain your existing data?

Thanks

[Dmitry Kozlov]

Hi,
You cannot switch the source list without losing your data because lookup fields uses IDs as values and they may differ for identical items in different lists. You can export lookup values with a PowerShell script or by exporting the list in Excel, then re-create the column, and import the values with PowerShell.