# Changing a field's Input type wiped its answer and its settings

**What you are seeing**

Changing a field's Input type wiped its answer and its settings.

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## Why it happens

By design. Switching type clears the stored value and drops settings that do not apply to the new type - options, multi-select, placeholder, number bounds and length limits.

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## What to do

Decide the type before collecting answers. If you must change type on a live form, export the responses to CSV first.

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## Settings involved

| **Setting**      | **Where**               | **What it does**                                                                                                                                                                     |
| ---------------- | ----------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Advanced edition | Marketplace / licensing | Unlocks every input type beyond single-line text, and unlocks the Forms nav item in the Suite regardless of the flag. It does NOT unlock the Forms search panel - that is flag-only. |

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## Limits that apply here

| **Limit**                       | **Value**                                | **What happens**                                       |
| ------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ |
| Standalone field autosave delay | 800 ms after the last change; "Saved" ti | Applies only to Input macros outside a Form container. |

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## A few things that catch people out

* The "Responded by" / "Responded at" stamp is applied to every form on the page at once, from the acting account - it is not per field or per form.
* The CQL field name embeds the app hash, so it differs between the standalone app and the Suite. A saved CQL search does not survive the move.

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## Related

[Two fields' answers merged into one column in the responses table or CSVTwo fields on the same page share a Field ID. The index keys answers by Field ID, so the l](https://help.gocapable.com/forms/two-fields-answers-merged-into-one-column-in-the-responses-table-or-csv.html)

[Large form's answers stopped appearing in the byline, the catalogue and property search - but they aThe page's forms exceeded the 28,000-character index cap. Multi-value answers were truncat](https://help.gocapable.com/forms/large-form-s-answers-stopped-appearing-in-the-byline-the-catalogue-and-property-search-but-they-a.html)

[Everything elseThe rest of this family.](https://help.gocapable.com/forms/everything-else.html)

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_Found it? Good._