How to search items with no tags from thousands of items?

Rowan.YAO
Thousands of items are collected in my library, but some of them are tagged while others are untagged.
My question is how can I search the items with no tags quickly from my library? I suppose that the 'Advanced Search' couldn't meet my requirement or I don't know how to use it correctly.
  • bwiernik
    edited April 28, 2020
    In Advanced Search, search for ‘Tag’ ‘does not contain’ ‘’ (leave the last box blank). Then check the “Show only top-level items” box and search.
  • Rowan.YAO
    That's it. Thank you very much!
  • gregorybott
    In Advanced Search, search for ‘Tag’ ‘does not contain’ ‘’ (leave the last box blank) is NOT working for me. Any suggestions? I'm using Zotero for Windows, 5.0.85.

    When I run the search for blank tags, a subset of my items are displayed, but nearly all of them have manual tags.

    This issue is the same with Publication and Creator, too.
  • bwiernik
    Have you checked the “show only top level items” box?
  • gregorybott
    Thank you! That worked and I greatly appreciate it.

    I failed to realize that child items can also be tagged. Thanks for the help!
  • oliviodare
    It doesn't work for me. I've tried;

    Tag | does not contain | %
    Tag | does not contain |

    And checking and unchecking 'Include parent and child items of matching items' and 'Show only top-level items' and the multiple combinations of this. I am on Zotero 6.0.14-beta.8+a7e6fc330, on MacOS Monterrey 12.0.1.

    Anybody else is experiencing this?
  • adamsmith
    "doesn't work" how? No results, too many results?
  • cdewitt
    I am having a similar problem and seems it appeared after the update to 6.0.15. I have had a saved advanced search working appropriately for years. The search shows top level items without a tag (Match all of the following | Tag | does not contain | field left bank. Search sub collections and show only top-level items checked). Now the search is showing 110 items, but all of these have tags on top level items. Additionally, in the tag selector field for this saved search only one tag appears when there should be many. I can provide screen shots if necessary.
  • dsoutar
    It also doesn't work for me. This search shows a subset of my library, all of which have tags. I'm not sure what the pattern is in the articles it is showing me.
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