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Removing old Shared Tags (Mac)


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I recently changed jobs, and had several shared Evernote databases in my old job that I've exported and removed from my workspace. 

 

However, tags from these old shared notebooks remain in my Evernote on the Mac (not on the web) and cannot be removed. When attempting to remove an old shared tag, I get a dialog saying "Can't delete 'tag'. This tag is in a shared notebook". An option to remove the tag from all notes exists, but it still doesn't delete the tag. 

 

There are solutions to this in the Windows forum that involve the use of a debug option to optimize the Evernote database, but I've never seen anything similar here. 

 

Anyone have any ideas? I've got a ton of these old dead tags and I want them outta here!

 

- Barry

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  • Level 5*

Great question, Barry.  We have long requested that Evernote provide their Mac users with database maintenance tools.

Unfortunate, they have not, and I don't know of any way to remove these old shared tags, short of installing your account in EN Win.

 

There might be one work-around.  Do a complete uninstall/reinstall of EN Mac.

See How to Completely Remove and Reinstall EN Mac 

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Checked around and it looks like a database rebuild is the best way to go at the moment. If all of your notes are synced and you have nothing local, this is a pretty cut and dry process. If you have local notebooks, I may recommend submitting a support ticket on the off chance you run into any trouble. Local notebooks make it a little trickier. 

 

To rebuild your Evernote for Mac database, follow these steps:
 
Save your local content:
 
1. Export any Local Notebooks; select **View > Notebooks**; right-click on each Local Notebook and select **Export Notes from…**
2. Choose **Evernote XML Format (.enex)** and save the file to your computer
3. Export any unsynchronized notes
 
Move your existing Evernote database:
 
1. Open Evernote for Mac
2. Select **Evernote > About Evernote**
3. Press and hold the **Option** key and select **Open database folder** (keep this folder open)
4. Select **Evernote > Quit Evernote** from the Menu Bar
5. Move the “www.evernote.com" folder (this will contain one or more numerical folders that contain all Evernote accounts you've used on your Mac) from the database folder to another location, such as your desktop
 
Open your desktop application and login to your Evernote account. Evernote will download all of your synced notes from Evernote's servers and create a new database on your computer. Once the new database has been created, import any Local Notebooks you previously exported by selecting **File > Import Notes**.
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Checked around and it looks like a database rebuild is the best way to go at the moment. If all of your notes are synced and you have nothing local, this is a pretty cut and dry process. If you have local notebooks, I may recommend submitting a support ticket on the off chance you run into any trouble. Local notebooks make it a little trickier. 

 

To rebuild your Evernote for Mac database, follow these steps:
. . .
 
5. Move the “www.evernote.com" folder (this will contain one or more numerical folders that contain all Evernote accounts you've used on your Mac) from the database folder to another location, such as your desktop

 

Thanks for jumping in so quickly, GBarry.  The database rebuild process you laid out is much simpler than my complete uninstall/reinstall process.

 

One question.  On your Step #5, would a rename (instead of a move) of the "www.evernote.com" folder to something like "OLD.www.evernote.com" work just as well?

 

May I suggest that you add your process to the EN KB?  I think a lot of users would find it very helpful.

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  • 1 month later...

One question.  On your Step #5, would a rename (instead of a move) of the "www.evernote.com" folder to something like "OLD.www.evernote.com" work just as well?

 

May I suggest that you add your process to the EN KB?  I think a lot of users would find it very helpful.

That would work just as well, correct. I'll get this suggested over to our KB team as well.

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  • 8 months later...

Great question, Barry.  We have long requested that Evernote provide their Mac users with database maintenance tools.

 

 

 

You call it "request", it's definite a mistake, it's almost a year since someone sent your the feedback, and it's still not fixed.

 

You never imagine how annoying to go trough the step just for removing the one single tag.

 

Is Evernote still the one we could trust?

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 5 weeks later...
On 2015/12/23 at 3:43 AM, amanda_h said:

Hey y'all. We're aware of this issue and are working on releasing a fix in an upcoming update to the Evernote application. 

It wasn't fixed in the recent update.

I don't want to be mean, but is there an approximate time, we already wait a year, so it will be 2020 or 2030?

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  • 1 month later...
On 2/3/2015 at 3:45 PM, gbarry said:

Checked around and it looks like a database rebuild is the best way to go at the moment. If all of your notes are synced and you have nothing local, this is a pretty cut and dry process. If you have local notebooks, I may recommend submitting a support ticket on the off chance you run into any trouble. Local notebooks make it a little trickier. 

 

To rebuild your Evernote for Mac database, follow these steps:
 
Save your local content:
 
1. Export any Local Notebooks; select **View > Notebooks**; right-click on each Local Notebook and select **Export Notes from…**
2. Choose **Evernote XML Format (.enex)** and save the file to your computer
3. Export any unsynchronized notes
 
Move your existing Evernote database:
 
1. Open Evernote for Mac
2. Select **Evernote > About Evernote**
3. Press and hold the **Option** key and select **Open database folder** (keep this folder open)
4. Select **Evernote > Quit Evernote** from the Menu Bar
5. Move the “www.evernote.com" folder (this will contain one or more numerical folders that contain all Evernote accounts you've used on your Mac) from the database folder to another location, such as your desktop
 
Open your desktop application and login to your Evernote account. Evernote will download all of your synced notes from Evernote's servers and create a new database on your computer. Once the new database has been created, import any Local Notebooks you previously exported by selecting **File > Import Notes**.

I know this is still being worked on, but why is there a need to export your local notes? I have all my notebooks sync'd, so would this only be needed if syncing is not enabled on a folder (and why would anyone do that?. If you rename your DB folder, wouldn't all the notes just download again to your database?

Also, I have over 10,000 notes, so I'm wondering how much time this will take (trying to decide if I will just wait for the (hopefully soon) next update to fix this).

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7 hours ago, jdnunn said:

I know this is still being worked on, but why is there a need to export your local notes? I have all my notebooks sync'd, so would this only be needed if syncing is not enabled on a folder (and why would anyone do that?.

That was "Export your local notebooks".  If you use this process, they are not sync'd to the cloud and would be deleted by the action in step 5.

Why anyone uses local notebooks - if you have confidential information; you might want to keep in only on your computer - it depends on your level of paranoia.  By putting it in a local notebook you still have the benefit of Evernote search

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4 hours ago, jdnunn said:

I know this is still being worked on, but why is there a need to export your local notes?

@gbarry is describing a process that will completely replace your existing Evernote database on your Mac from scratch.  In order to retain your local notes (notes in Local Notebooks), you will need to export them to ENEX files BEFORE you move your local database.  Then, after you move your Evernote database and redownload all of your sync'd notes, you will need to import the ENEX files to restore your local notes.

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  • 9 months later...
On 2/4/2015 at 5:45 AM, gbarry said:

Checked around and it looks like a database rebuild is the best way to go at the moment. If all of your notes are synced and you have nothing local, this is a pretty cut and dry process. If you have local notebooks, I may recommend submitting a support ticket on the off chance you run into any trouble. Local notebooks make it a little trickier. 

 

To rebuild your Evernote for Mac database, follow these steps:
 
Save your local content:
 
1. Export any Local Notebooks; select **View > Notebooks**; right-click on each Local Notebook and select **Export Notes from…**
2. Choose **Evernote XML Format (.enex)** and save the file to your computer
3. Export any unsynchronized notes
 
Move your existing Evernote database:
 
1. Open Evernote for Mac
2. Select **Evernote > About Evernote**
3. Press and hold the **Option** key and select **Open database folder** (keep this folder open)
4. Select **Evernote > Quit Evernote** from the Menu Bar
5. Move the “www.evernote.com" folder (this will contain one or more numerical folders that contain all Evernote accounts you've used on your Mac) from the database folder to another location, such as your desktop
 
Open your desktop application and login to your Evernote account. Evernote will download all of your synced notes from Evernote's servers and create a new database on your computer. Once the new database has been created, import any Local Notebooks you previously exported by selecting **File > Import Notes**.

Hey! Following these steps have solved the problem of un-deletable tags for my notes. Thank you!

In short, person A shared notebook B with me, that contained notes with tags.

Person A subsequently deleted and un-shared notebook B. This resulted in my EN Mac native client having "phantom" tags with 0 notes in them. These tags however, did not appear on the web version of EN.

Rebuilding the DB solved the issue :)

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  • 1 month later...

Good to know that the same method to get rid of the old shared tags is being used, but I didn't expect it to be so old. 

This entry is from 2015, and @Peter F's question was answered on Dec-2015 but so far there's been no fix (and it's 2017 already) since I've been given the same method to remove my tags.

Is there any news on when this problem is going to be fixed?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Encountered this issue today on my Mac :(

Rebuild database didn't help.

Web and iOS devices don't see the tag anymore, but two MacBooks still do.

It's been 2 years. Really want someone in Evernote to handle this issue seriously.

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12 hours ago, seanyhc said:

Encountered this issue today on my Mac :(

Rebuild database didn't help.

Web and iOS devices don't see the tag anymore, but two MacBooks still do.

It's been 2 years. Really want someone in Evernote to handle this issue seriously.

Hi @seanyhc, would you mind submitting a ticket using the link in my signature and let me know the ticket number here? Thanks!

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  • 1 year later...

Well, what a surprise. Here is exactly the issue I have now encountered and despite being aware of it for over 3 years Evernote still haven't fixed yet ...can't for the life of me understand why bugs like this go unattended for years while developers fif faf around with the UI. The suggestion of rebuilding the database is absurd. Yes, it may work but it nothing more than a workaround. Deleting tags is a standard use case. One should not be required to rebuild the database following a few changes to a tag structure.

... and yes, a ticket has been raised. As a long time locked in user of the buggy elephant this is at least one thing I have become pretty adept at.

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