I’m working on a workflow where I need to check if a specific key/item exists in Zapier Storage and then use Filter to decide what happens next.
What I want to accomplish:
If key/item is found → Execute Task X
If not found → Execute Task Y
The problem I’m facing is that when the Storage lookup doesn’t find anything, it returns empty results. This causes my Filter step to fail because there’s no data to evaluate against.
Does anyone know if there’s a built-in solution for handling empty Storage responses? I need a way to make the automation continue even when no matching key is found.
Had this exact problem a few months ago and found a solid workaround. Don’t rely on the Filter step for empty results - add a Formatter step right after your Storage lookup instead. Set it to “Text” and use the “Default Value” transform. I usually put “NOT_FOUND” as the default value. Now your Filter step always has data to work with - it just checks if the result equals “NOT_FOUND” or contains your actual stored value. This approach never fails and keeps everything running smooth whether the key exists or not.
Had this exact problem last year. Skip the downstream fixes and add a Paths step right after Storage lookup instead. Create two paths - one for when Storage finds data, another for empty results. The empty path triggers automatically when there’s no data, so you don’t need filtering logic. Path A handles “key found” with Task X, Path B handles “not found” with Task Y. This completely avoids the Filter failure since each path only gets the data type it expects. Way cleaner than messing with formatters and default values.
Actually, there’s a simpler fix - just use the “Continue on Error” setting in your Filter step. Go to filter settings and toggle “Should this step be considered a ‘success’ when nothing is found?” to YES. When storage returns empty, the filter won’t crash and you can handle both scenarios downstream. No need for extra formatters or paths.