Unused Active Picklist Values

The Unused Active Picklist Values analysis compares the active values defined in a picklist field's settings against the values actually found in records. Active values with zero matching records are flagged as "Unused".

Use this analysis to spot picklist configurations that have grown cluttered with values that were never adopted, so you can decide whether to deactivate or remove them.

Configuration

Set a threshold for what constitutes a good, warning level, or critical unused active picklist value rate. The threshold flags the percentage of a field's picklist values that are unused while active. Say you are analyzing a large number of fields, and you want to clean up fields with many unused active fields first. In that case a threshold of Good at 25% and Warning at 50% would make sense. To display results in red (Critical) even if just one of the picklist options is unused, set the threshold for Good (green) at 1%, and Warning (amber) at 2%.

Detailed Job Results

For each picklist field, the percentage of unused active picklist values is displayed in the Unused Active Picklist Values by Field bar chart. Hover over a field's bar to see more details.
Below, the Field Details table shows for each field the number of unused picklist values ( # of Unused Picklist Values), the percentage of unused picklist values ( % of Unused Picklist Values) marked with its threshold color, and the picklist values of that field that are not used on any record (Unused Active Picklist Values).

Key Insights

• Picklist clutter: A high percentage of unused active values in a field usually means the picklist has grown noisy and harder for users to navigate.
• Adoption gaps: Values that were added for a planned use case but are in practice never used show up here as unused.
• Cleanup candidates: Values with zero record usage are generally safe to deactivate or remove, though see the caveat under 'Recommended Actions' below before doing so.
• Field health comparison: Comparing fields lets you see which picklists are lean and well-used versus which ones need the most cleanup attention.

Recommended Actions

Scenario	Actions
A field has many unused active values	- Review each unused value to determine whether it is obsolete, was never rolled out, or duplicates another value. - Deactivate or remove values with zero usage; if a value might be needed again later, deactivate rather than delete. See more on this in the next action point.
A value shows zero record usage but may still be referenced elsewhere	- Before deactivating, check whether any flow, Apex, or integration is set to be able to write this value to records, since restricted picklists will reject the write once the value is inactive. - Before deleting, check for any process that reads or checks against the value, as these might then fail after deletion.
Picklist has accumulated "just in case" values over time	- Confirm with business stakeholders which values are actually needed. - In the future, avoid adding speculative values without a clear, confirmed use case.
Preparing a field for reporting, segmentation, or AI	- Remove or deactivate unused values first to produce cleaner categories.