How to delete tags in bulk?

There are a large number of tabs on the current tab bar, and it would be very troublesome for me to delete them one by one. Is there a way to delete the tabs in bulk? (I couldn't find the answer in the user manual ).

Looking forward to the answer, thank you!


  • edited January 8, 2024
    To you mean tags or tabs? If you mean tags, I've posted a solution to deleting lots of tags at once here* to remove all existing tags from your library; * https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/87128/deleting-multiple-tags#latest repeated below for convenience;

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    I think I've worked out how to remove all tags from your library by combining advice from various threads without needing to use code;

    1. If you have tags you want to keep, create a new collection (e.g. I named mine 'Saving coloured tags' < create a new folder for each tag you want to keep < copy all references with that tag into their specific folder.

    2. Install the Zutilo plugin; https://github.com/wshanks/Zutilo (full installation instructions are on the webpage if you scroll down)

    3. As is_PengLu has said at https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/406821#Comment_406821 , "After installation of Zutilo, go to Tools < Zutilo Preference < User Interface < Remove tags [second option down] --> deselect 'hide' and select 'Zutilo context menu' so that 'Remove tags' will display when you right click an item

    4. OPTIONAL: on the zutilo preferences menu (Tools < Zutilo preferences) click on the 'Shortcuts' tab on the top, scroll down to find 'Remove tags', select it, and enter a keyboard shortcut (I did Shift+R): this will enable you to remove all tags for the selected item(s) by pressing Shift+R

    5. Go back to the main zotero window and select 'My Library' (Brown folder). Click Command+A to select all items, then Shift+R (or right click < Zutilo < Remove all tags) to remove all tags in your library

    6. Reinstate the tags you saved by going back to that new collection you made in step 1 ('saving coloured tags') and add back the tags to each reference in those subfolders. You can quickly add the same tag back to a list of items by draging a set of items to a tag in the tag selector on the left (as per https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/64065/tagging-multiple-items-at-once)

    This seems to have worked for me at removing the hundreds of useless tags imported from EndNote and has synced across my desktop and laptop fine. Hope that helps!

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    Also ensure you've deselected 'autogenerate tags' to stop new tags being generated that you don't want. Instructions on how to do this are at the bottom of https://www.zotero.org/support/collections_and_tags (briefly; Edit < Preferences < General < Miscellaneous < deselect 'automatically tag items with keywords and subject headings' )
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