To-do item removed

The To-do item removed trigger is useful when you want Home Assistant to react after an item disappears from a list. You can use it to notify someone, refresh a related routine, or keep another system in sync with your to-do list.

Using this trigger from the user interface

If you prefer building automations visually, Home Assistant walks you through this trigger step by step. You pick what to watch, tweak a few options, and save. No YAML knowledge required.

To use this trigger in an automation:

1. Go to Settings > Automations & scenes.
2. Open an existing automation, or select Create automation > Create new automation.
3. In the When section, select Add trigger.
4. Select what you want to monitor. Under By target (see Targets), pick the to-do list you want to watch. You can also select an area, floor, device, entity, or label if that target resolves to one or more to-do lists.
5. From the triggers shown for that target, select To-do item removed.
6. Select Save.

Options in the UI

This trigger has no additional options beyond the target.

Using this trigger in YAML

If you work directly in YAML, or you want to know exactly what Home Assistant does under the hood, this section has the technical reference. It lists the field names you use in YAML, their types, and which ones are required. For how an automation is built in YAML, refer to Automations in YAML.

In YAML, put the settings that are specific to this trigger under options. Keep target, if the trigger uses one, and general settings such as id, alias, enabled, and variables at the top level, next to trigger.

When this trigger starts an automation, it passes data about what happened to the automation. You can use this trigger data in the templates of your conditions and actions. To see which data is available, refer to Trigger data in templates.

In YAML, refer to this trigger as todo.item_removed. A basic example looks like this:

trigger: todo.item_removed
target:
  entity_id: todo.shopping_list

This fires every time an item is removed from todo.shopping_list.

Options in YAML

This trigger has no additional YAML options beyond the target.

Targets of the trigger

This trigger requires a target. The target is the object that Home Assistant will watch. You can select a single entityAn entity represents a sensor, actor, or function in Home Assistant. Entities are used to monitor physical properties or to control other entities. An entity is usually part of a device or a service. [Learn more], a device, an area, a floor, or a label as a target, and Home Assistant will watch every matching todo entity behind that target.

• Entity: one specific todo entity, such as todo.living_room.
• Device: every todo entity that belongs to a device.
• Area: every todo entity in a room or area.
• Floor: every todo entity on a floor.
• Label: every todo entity that shares a label.

You can also select different target types in one trigger. For example, you can add a specific entity and an area as targets in the same trigger to monitor both of them at once.

To learn which entities Home Assistant includes for a device, area, floor, or label, and how it handles several entities, refer to Automation targets.

Trigger variables

When the trigger reacts, the trigger variable contains the following data:

• trigger.entity_id: Entity ID of the to-do list.
• trigger.item_ids: List of the unique IDs (uid) of the to-do items that were removed.

This trigger doesn’t include the previous or new state of the to-do list. The removed items are no longer on the list, so only their IDs are available.

For the data that all triggers include, refer to Trigger data in templates.

Good to know

• This trigger fires after Home Assistant removes one or more items from the targeted to-do list.
• Changes to unavailable or unknown do not count as items being removed.

Try it yourself

Ready to test this? Go to Settings > Automations & scenes, create a new automation, and add this trigger. Save the automation, and then make the trigger react. For example, change the state of the targeted entityAn entity represents a sensor, actor, or function in Home Assistant. Entities are used to monitor physical properties or to control other entities. An entity is usually part of a device or a service. [Learn more], turn on a light that the trigger monitors, or change its brightness. To check whether the automation ran, open its traces.

More examples

Real scenarios where this trigger fires in automations and scripts. Copy any example and adapt it to your setup. In the visual editor, select the UI options listed in the example when they are available, or paste the YAML code.

Automation: notify the household when a shopping item is removed

If you use a shared shopping list, this automation can let everyone know that an item was removed, which often means it has already been bought.

• Trigger: To-do item removed
• Target: Shopping list
• Action: Send a notification message
  • Target: My Device (notify.my_device)

alias: "Notify me when a shopping item is removed"
triggers:
  - trigger: todo.item_removed
    target:
      entity_id: todo.shopping_list
actions:
  - action: notify.send_message
    target:
      entity_id: notify.my_device
    data:
      message: >
        An item was removed from the shopping list.

Automation: turn off a reminder light when an item is removed from the errands list

If you use a light as a reminder that errands are still pending, this automation turns it off after an item is removed from the list.

• Trigger: To-do item removed
• Target: Errands list
• Action: Turn off light

alias: "Turn off the errands reminder light"
triggers:
  - trigger: todo.item_removed
    target:
      entity_id: todo.errands_list
actions:
  - action: light.turn_off
    target:
      entity_id: light.hallway_reminder

Still stuck?

To find out why the trigger didn’t react, make the change that it should react to, and then open the traces of the automation. If the automation didn’t run, there’s usually no trace, but some triggers record a Did not trigger trace. For details, refer to Testing automations. For common problems and their solutions, refer to Troubleshooting automations.

If that doesn’t help, the Home Assistant community is quick to help: join Discord for real-time chat, post on the community forum with the trigger you’re using and what you expected to happen, or share on our subreddit /r/homeassistant.

Related triggers

Explore related triggers:

• To-do item added: Triggers when one or more to-do items are added to a list.

• To-do item completed: Triggers when one or more to-do items are marked as done.