How to Delete Tags in Bulk All At Once

[snowrider 14]

Hi,

I don't know when it started, but at some point Evernote started tagging my clips automatically based on the text in the content being clipped.  I searched the forums and found how to turn this "feature" off so it wont' do it anymore, but now I'm stuck with HUNDREDS of one-word tags cluttering my tags list and would like to get rid of them. To solve the problem,

1. I click on the icon for TAGS in the left sidebar, which brought up the whole list of tags.
2. I then did a CTRL-A (on a PC) to select all of the tags
3. I held down the CTRL key and clicked to de-select any tags I wanted to keep. I had to scroll to the right several times to get through the list because there were so many tags. 
4. It was pretty easy to quickly see which ones were auto-generated without reading all the tags because the auto-generated tags usually had a (1) or (2) next to them indicating how many times the tag is being used.  The tags I created myself were used more than once.  
5. Once I had selected the tags I wanted to delete, I clicked the Delete key on my keyword.  You could also right-click and select Delete from the context menu

Hope this helps someone else who finds they have accumulated a lot of unwanted tags.

 

[mrje1 0]

Thank you very much for taking the time out to add this information. This really helped and needed. Have a great day!

[Lorin 1]

This is an obvious solution but doesn't seem to work in EN v 10.2.4 for mac. Nor in does it work in the current web version (10.3.0)

 

[charris 16]

Hi.  Here's the workaround I used to delete a bunch of tags at once:

1.  create new tag (e.g. "delete-nested-tags")

2.  drag the tags you wish to delete inside of the newly created tag

3.  right-click the tag you just created, select the option to "delete tag"

4.  if the tag you selected has sub-tags, you will see the option to "delete all sub-tags"

That's it!  Bulk operations would be easier.

[Ângelo Cossa 2]

On 3/26/2021 at 1:27 PM, charris said:

Hi.  Here's the workaround I used to delete a bunch of tags at once:

1.  create new tag (e.g. "delete-nested-tags")

2.  drag the tags you wish to delete inside of the newly created tag

3.  right-click the tag you just created, select the option to "delete tag"

4.  if the tag you selected has sub-tags, you will see the option to "delete all sub-tags"

That's it!  Bulk operations would be easier.

The workaround was a life saver, but the funcionality is much needed, very disapointed with the software, i had to spend half a day to delete hundreds of tags created by trying to import notes from another software, at least the workaround made it possible, i was junt giving up...

[samantha_ 3]

If there are tons of tags, the only option seems to be click each and every one of them to drag to a master "delete this" tag which isn't a workaround since you'd have to click each tag anyway. Now that it's a year later, is there a fix to this for Mac or web?

[PinkElephant 8,114]

It may be easier when you install the legacy client and do it there. A few operations are still better in the old version than the new one. However, the initial post in this thread was created when there was only legacy, and it seems it was a problem back then as well.

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052560314-Install-an-older-version-of-Evernote

 

Hints: It will create a second full database on your computer, you need this space. And for Free users: It will be counted as another „device“, even if installed on the same computer.

In general: You can take tagging to extremes. My tag housekeeping is done in a quarter of an hour here and then. If you need a lot more time, you maybe use more tags than reasonable to help you get more productive.

[gazumped 11,666]

Another way to attack the problem:  if you have some notes that are tagged correctly,  and a larger number of others that are incorrect,  find a way to identify the correct notes - by another tag,  a keyword of or a date range - and give them a temporary tag.  Then go to the tags page and delete the problem tag for all notes.  Re-apply it if necessary via your temporary tag.

[Mygdala 7]

So it's now August 2023 and there seems to be no way to select multiple tags in Evernote on Mac or on the web, so the workaround isn't possible. Is this really the case or am I just being dimwitted?

Edit - I just did more digging, and indeed, it's not possible to select multiple tags for easy tag maintenance. I must register my astonishment at how stupid this is. Evernote, why on earth do you keep making it so hard to love you? Why take away this simple function?

[gazumped 11,666]

5 hours ago, Mygdala said:

it's not possible to select multiple tags for easy tag maintenance

Hi.  What exactly are you trying to do to multiple tags?  Find notes with all those tags? Any of those tags?  And what device / OS / Evernote version are you using?

[mkamir 1]

On 8/10/2023 at 2:38 PM, Mygdala said:

So it's now August 2023 and there seems to be no way to select multiple tags in Evernote on Mac or on the web, so the workaround isn't possible. Is this really the case or am I just being dimwitted?

Edit - I just did more digging, and indeed, it's not possible to select multiple tags for easy tag maintenance. I must register my astonishment at how stupid this is. Evernote, why on earth do you keep making it so hard to love you? Why take away this simple function?

You're so right... "why on earth do you keep making it so hard to love you"...

[gazumped 11,666]

18 hours ago, mkamir said:

You're so right... "why on earth do you keep making it so hard to love you"...

Perhaps you can explain exactly what you are trying to do so we can actually try to help?  Your device / OS and Evernote version would also be nice...

[djmarshall 1]

I have arrived on this thread because I am encountering the same problem. What I am trying to do is wipe the tag slate (almost) clean and start again. I have been on and off evernote for years and I have a whole bunch of tags that are obsolete and that I would like to delete. However it is too time consuming to delete them one at a time. No CTRL-A? no keyboard combo to select multiple tags for deletion?

[PinkElephant 8,114]

No, currently not.

For missing functions contact support.

[gazumped 11,666]

7 hours ago, djmarshall said:

No CTRL-A? no keyboard combo to select multiple tags for deletion?

I'll take a wild guess that you're a Windows desktop user,  but installed or web version? Win 10 or 11? - details help...

If you plan a tag-mageddon it might be a bad idea:    if you use more than one device it will take an age for your deleted tags to sync with your other clients and your searches will be chaos for a while.  I changed tagging systems with one simple(ish) trick - all my tags now have an x prefix - so "xAmazon " to "xZapier".  Older tags get deleted from time to time as I notice them.

If you go to the tags page in a desktop it's possible to delete a tag with one click - but bearing the sync issue in mind,  I'd suggest doing a handfull a day to start...

[djmarshall 1]

Ok thanks for the response, indeed I didn't consider sync issues. I am on Mac using the desktop app, so i should have said cmd-A I guess 🙂

I'll go for your quick trick and start a new tagging system with some sort of prefix.

[PinkElephant 8,114]

Cmd-A doesn’t select all tags for me, and I get no multi selection with cmd or shift + click either.

[sonicrick 1]

On 10/4/2023 at 6:30 AM, gazumped said:

I'll take a wild guess that you're a Windows desktop user,  but installed or web version? Win 10 or 11? - details help...

If you plan a tag-mageddon it might be a bad idea:    if you use more than one device it will take an age for your deleted tags to sync with your other clients and your searches will be chaos for a while.  I changed tagging systems with one simple(ish) trick - all my tags now have an x prefix - so "xAmazon " to "xZapier".  Older tags get deleted from time to time as I notice them.

If you go to the tags page in a desktop it's possible to delete a tag with one click - but bearing the sync issue in mind,  I'd suggest doing a handfull a day to start...

Not sure what is the tag-mageddon referred to here; I assume it's a tag change. For me, my use is tag cleanup: I have hundreds of tags accumulated over the years that by now are a clutter, and I intend to remove all tags with low counts, with the obvious tags with 0 notes first, then likely tags with 1 and 2 notes (I'm happy to let the notes remain untagged).

Is there an easy way to delete all these tags? I am on multiple devices, but if I don't care for searching with these tags anymore on any of my devices hence I don't care when it eventually syncs across all devices, is there a quick way to pick all these tags up and delete them rather than manually accumulate them into an aggregate tag to nuke?

[gazumped 11,666]

Sorry for the tag-mageddon sidetrack - that was a joking reference to the large-scale destruction of tag-kind.  And no - there's no 'quick' way for any of this.  Tag syncing across devices is not great as it is.  My own view would be to delete the tags you don't need in one session,  then do not do any more work on tags until you can see that the deletions have gone through via the web client - which is the 'parent' version of your notes on all devices.

If you get frustrated after a week and start changing thing on another device,  you'll just confuse the system and it will need a month to settle down.

[restructuregirl 0]

Thanks for everyone on this discussion. So annoying that the wonderful view all tags option has been removed in the upgraded version. I'm very grateful to those above who outlined the workaround of nesting or multi tagging to them bulk delete. Still awkward but at least possible. I sorted my tags list by no of posts and bulk deleted anything with 0