An administrator has been asked to change the data type of an auto number to a text field. What should the administrator be aware of before changing the field?

Changing the data type of an Auto Number field to a Text field is a destructive operation; Salesforce explicitly warns that all existing auto-generated numbers in that field on records will be lost and deleted during the conversion.

Salesforce does allow changing an Auto Number field to a Text field, though with a critical data loss warning, so the action is not prevented.

Existing Auto Number values are not converted into text values; they are instead deleted entirely when the field type is changed from Auto Number to Text.

Existing field values will not remain unchanged; they will be deleted, leaving the field blank on existing records.