React useEffect Hook when only one of the effect’s deps changes, but not the others

The React Team says that the best way to get prev values is to use useRef: https://reactjs.org/docs/hooks-faq.html#how-to-get-the-previous-props-or-state

function Component(props) {
  const [ items, setItems ] = useState([]);

  const prevItemIdRef = useRef();
  useEffect(() => {
    prevItemIdRef.current = props.itemId;
  });
  const prevItemId = prevItemIdRef.current;

  // In a callback Hook to prevent unnecessary re-renders 
  const handleFetchItems = useCallback(() => {
    fetchItemsFromApi().then(setItems);
  }, []);

  // Fetch items on mount
  useEffect(() => {
    handleFetchItems();
  }, []);

  // I want this effect to run only when 'props.itemId' changes,
  // not when 'items' changes
  useEffect(() => {
    if(prevItemId !== props.itemId) {
      console.log('diff itemId');
    }

    if (items) {
      const item = items.find(item => item.id === props.itemId);
      console.log("Item changed to " item.name);
    }
  }, [ items, props.itemId ])

  // Clicking the button should NOT log anything to console
  return (
    <Button onClick={handleFetchItems}>Fetch items</Button>
  );
}

I think that this could help in your case.

Note: if you don’t need the previous value, another approach is to write one useEffect more for props.itemId

React.useEffect(() => {
  console.log('track changes for itemId');
}, [props.itemId]);