Pandas DataFrame columns are Pandas Series when you pull them out, which you can then call x.tolist() on to turn them into a Python list. Alternatively you cast it with list(x).

Copyimport pandas as pd

data_dict = {'one': pd.Series([1, 2, 3], index=['a', 'b', 'c']),
             'two': pd.Series([1, 2, 3, 4], index=['a', 'b', 'c', 'd'])}

df = pd.DataFrame(data_dict)

print(f"DataFrame:\n{df}\n")
print(f"column types:\n{df.dtypes}")

col_one_list = df['one'].tolist()

col_one_arr = df['one'].to_numpy()

print(f"\ncol_one_list:\n{col_one_list}\ntype:{type(col_one_list)}")
print(f"\ncol_one_arr:\n{col_one_arr}\ntype:{type(col_one_arr)}")

Output:

DataFrame:
   one  two
a  1.0    1
b  2.0    2
c  3.0    3
d  NaN    4

column types:
one    float64
two      int64
dtype: object

col_one_list:
[1.0, 2.0, 3.0, nan]
type:<class 'list'>

col_one_arr:
[ 1.  2.  3. nan]
type:<class 'numpy.ndarray'>
Answer from Ben on Stack Overflow
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GeeksforGeeks
geeksforgeeks.org › pandas › how-to-convert-pandas-column-to-list
How To Convert Pandas Column To List - GeeksforGeeks
July 23, 2025 - One can convert a pandas column to a list using tolist() function which works on the Pandas Series object.
Discussions

How to deal with list values in Pandas Dataframe?
AFAIK there isn't a way to nicely handle lists as a column in a pandas dataframe. You'd want to read it in as a string, do some kind of manipulation on the data like splitting it, then transform your data into a more usable structure, like having a single column for each value or transpose the structure so each value in the list becomes a value in a column. More on reddit.com
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March 24, 2022
Extracting only numerical value from a list in a Pandas DataFrame
See .explode() >>> df.explode("values") kommunkod values 0 0114 50101 1 0115 34999 2 0117 49271 More on reddit.com
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5
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May 16, 2024
Mean of a list of Series [Pandas]
if I understand correctly, each element in the Series is a list of 2 numbers. s = Series([ [1.5, 2], [3.4, 15] ]) So you should be able to apply a function to perform the calculation you need s.apply(lambda x: sum(x) / len(x)) More on reddit.com
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August 2, 2022
How do I parse out a Pandas list-like column into a list, and then explode the row?
Without looking at it in an actual IDE, I would consider just putting every value into a string or list of the one you want to remove the chars for. Then I would do the replace one time, and then do a split to make into a list itself. So something like: correct_list = replaced_support_ids.split(',') Mind you I'm on mobile so maybe typos and probably a more elegant answer, but string manipulation is kinda wonky sometimes imo. Edit: oh look up translate too might be helpful here More on reddit.com
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November 13, 2024
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Saturn Cloud
saturncloud.io › blog › pandas-convert-column-to-list
Pandas Convert Column to List | Saturn Cloud Blog
October 21, 2023 - Functional Programming: Some Python ... The easiest way to convert a column of a Pandas DataFrame to a list is to use the tolist() method....
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ActiveState
activestate.com › home › resources › quick read › how to access a column in a dataframe (using pandas)
How to Access a Column in a DataFrame (using Pandas) - ActiveState
March 14, 2025 - This Series Object is then used to get the columns of our DataFrame with missing values, and turn it into a list using the tolist() function. Finally we use these indices to get the columns with missing values.
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Medium
medium.com › data-science › dealing-with-list-values-in-pandas-dataframes-a177e534f173
Dealing with List Values in Pandas Dataframes | by Max Hilsdorf | TDS Archive | Medium
May 6, 2023 - If only kid #2 named bananas, the banana column would have a “True” value at row 2 and “False” values everywhere else (see Figure 6). I wrote a function that will perform this operation. It relies on looping, which means that it will take lots of time with large datasets. However, out of all the methods I tried, this was the most efficient way to do it. def boolean_df(item_lists, unique_items): # Create empty dict bool_dict = {} # Loop through all the tags for i, item in enumerate(unique_items): # Apply boolean mask bool_dict[item] = item_lists.apply(lambda x: item in x) # Return the results as a dataframe return pd.DataFrame(bool_dict)
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/learnpython › how to deal with list values in pandas dataframe?
r/learnpython on Reddit: How to deal with list values in Pandas Dataframe?
March 24, 2022 -

I have a csv file where some of the data cells contains a list, such as ['2.93' '1.02'] (a string). When reading it into a panda Dataframe, what should I do to make sure the entry in the data cell is a list containing float type numbers [2.93 1.02] ? I have tried using the eval() function, but it failed to detect that it is two separate numbers, it just returns ['2.931.02'], which is a list containing a string.

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medium.com › @shouke.wei › easy-methods-of-converting-pandas-dataframe-into-lists-713f3dbd1811
Easy Methods of Converting Pandas DataFrame into Lists | by Dr. Shouke Wei | Medium
July 3, 2023 - These examples will provide you with practical insights into how to extract and transform your data from a DataFrame into a list format. ... import pandas as pd # Creating a sample DataFrame data = {'Name': ['John', 'Alice', 'Bob'], 'Age': [25, 30, 35], 'City': ['New York', 'Paris', 'London']} df = pd.DataFrame(data) df ... There are several methods you can use to convert a Pandas DataFrame into a list.
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datascienceparichay.com › home › blog › pandas – get column values as a list
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November 9, 2022 - You can use the pandas series tolist() function to get the values of a pandas dataframe column as a list.
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Multi-column explode. >>> df.explode(list("AC")) A B C 0 0 1 a 0 1 1 b 0 2 1 c 1 foo 1 NaN 2 NaN 1 NaN 3 3 1 d 3 4 1 e
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pandas.DataFrame.columns — pandas 3.0.2 documentation
This property holds the column names as a pandas Index object. It provides an immutable sequence of column labels that can be used for data selection, renaming, and alignment in DataFrame operations. ... The column labels of the DataFrame. ... The index (row labels) of the DataFrame. ... Return a list representing the axes of the DataFrame.
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quora.com › How-do-I-save-the-column-from-a-data-frame-as-a-list-in-Python
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Pandas DataFrame to List: 5 Methods with Code Examples – Kanaries
February 12, 2026 - Convert a Pandas DataFrame to a list of lists, dicts, or tuples using tolist(), to_dict(), values, and itertuples(). Includes performance comparison and best practices.
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pandas.DataFrame.dropna — pandas 3.0.2 documentation
‘all’ : If all values are NA, drop that row or column. ... Require that many non-NA values. Cannot be combined with how. subsetcolumn label or iterable of labels, optional · Labels along other axis to consider, e.g. if you are dropping rows these would be a list of columns to include.
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saturncloud.io › blog › how-to-get-a-list-from-a-pandas-dataframe-column
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June 19, 2023 - Pandas is widely used in data science, machine learning, and finance, among other fields. To get a list of values from a specific column of a Pandas dataframe, you can use the tolist() method of the Pandas Series object, which represents a column ...
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geeksforgeeks.org › python › how-to-get-column-names-in-pandas-dataframe
How to Get Column Names in Pandas Dataframe - GeeksforGeeks
July 11, 2025 - We can use the Pandas DataFrame .columns property to get all column names as an Index object. To convert it into a list.
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Go to the end to download the full example code · Matplotlib recognizes the following formats to specify a color