removing unused tags

rob.nicholas · January 13, 2012

I have a large number of unused tags visible in my Zotero web account. How can I remove/purge these?

dstillman · January 13, 2012

If they're really unused—that is, unattached to any items—they'll be purged by the client automatically. They're not purged if you just use the website.

Ecle · October 8, 2012

How often will the tags be purged? My tags are 'clean' in the library itself (the unused tags have been deleted together with the unused entry's), but in the webversion it's still quite a mess.

dstillman · October 8, 2012

Try restarting the browser. I believe the online library currently does slightly overly aggressive caching of tags.

Ecle · October 12, 2012

Thanks, Dan. Nevertheless, I've been waiting some days, and have restarted the browser accordingly more often. Nothing changed.

It seems the caching is aggressive indeed, as unused tags from a test-import (deleted afterwards) are still there in the online-view of tags and also, by the way, when adding tags to entries.

It would be great if there was a way to get rid of these unused ones, because they are pretty useless in my case and getting on my nerves while working.

fcheslack · October 12, 2012

The tags are stored with your session, so if you restart your browser but restore the previous session it will not clear your tags. If you don't want to lose your session you can force an uncached reload in most browsers with ctrl-shift-R or cmd-shift-R.

Ecle · October 30, 2012

I am sorry, but they unused tags still show up, in the web view and when adding new tags. I do always clean up my cache and history in my browser.

dstillman · October 30, 2012

They still show up when adding new tags in the client, you mean? That means they haven't been purged locally. If you delete a tag from the tag selector (by right-clicking and choosing Delete) and sync, any unused tags should be purged. If the tags are still linked to items in the trash, they won't be purged.