delete labels

[Deleted user]

How can I delete labels from a Confluence Cloud space? Doesn't have to be globally, one by one would be fine.

[Tobias Anstett _K15t_ · Accepted solution]

Hi Julie,

If you are using labels to categorize spaces - sometimes referred to as space categories but also as space labels - the following documentation describes how to add but also how to remove them: https://confluence.atlassian.com/confcloud/use-labels-to-categorize-spaces-724764814.html

Best, Tobias

[Deleted user]

Thanks Tobias, however I apologise for not framing my question very well. Let me try again! I am managing a space with lots of collaborators, and we have lots of labels to choose from when labelling a page. With many labels that are similar, it is often difficult to choose the "real" one, i.e. the one that will drive the content by label report. How can I get rid of all those extraneous labels so they do not show up when people start typing a label name. It is too easy to choose the wrong one because there are so many that are similar. I'd like to clean them up and only leave a smaller number to choose from.

[Tobias Anstett _K15t_]

Unfortunately there is no way to do this using the user interface... 

However you might want to try the commercial "Labels Cage" app https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1211162/labels-cage which allows you to manage labels in a more restricted way.

Best, Tobias

[Deleted user]

Thanks so much Tobias, even when the answer is "it can't be done", it is great to know the truth. Also, thanks for that link, I am interested to see what is behind it. Will give it a go.

[kaimen]

I went into the individual "label list" macro on a page to exclude the unwanted labels so that they don't show up in my label list.

[Diego]

Hello @[deleted]  and everyone else who might need to delete labels from their sites.

We can delete the labels from our spaces. The thing is that the process is entirely manual in Confluence.

For us to remove a label from a space, we need to remove it from each piece of content that contains it.

Here is how you can test this:

1. Create a couple new pages
2. Publish the pages
3. Label each page with a new label (I will use welcome as a label)                  
4. Create a new page
5. Place the Labels List macro in it                                                                                 
6. Publish the page
7. Be sure that all newly created pages are within the same space
8. Go to the page that contains our Labels List macro (I will call this page Labels Page)                                                                                                                            
9. Check that the newly created label is listed there in the macro                               
10. Click the link that refers to the newly created label
11. This will lead you into a page that shows all content that contains that specific label.                                                                                                                                         
12. Now, for each content piece, visit it and remove the label from it.    
13. After removing the label from all content, go back to the Labels Page
14. You will now see that the label is no longer listed there.   

Something to keep in mind is that questions do count as content and if you need to remove any label that is also present there, you will need to remove the label from your questions as well.
Labels are called Topics in Questions for Confluence.

Other than the native method of removal, you can also try the Command Line Interface from BobSwift, as explained in this other thread:

• [Atlassian Community] How can I delete all the labels in a Confluence space using the Confluence CLI?

Here is the documentation for the procedure using CLI:

• [Bob Swift] Command Line Interface - How to remove a label from a set of pages

I hope this helps you and everyone who needs to remove labels! Let us know your thoughts on this.

[ihe]

Hi Diego (and others). 

I was really happy to read this detailled description as I thought it would solve my challenge in removing labels from Confluence. However, it doesn´t seem that your description is correct? Let me explain: We have Confluence Server, version 7.1.0. We use Label list macro. We have a label called reptiles, and the label is listed in Label list macro. I click on that label in order to see what pages use reptile-label. There are no pages that use that label. Then I thought maybe the label was used in another Space, so I checked and searched globally for that label. And still no pages was found. Sooo, as far as I can understand what you wrote in your reply here isn´t accurate? Or what am I missing here?

I just realised that this community is for Confluence Cloud. Sorry about that. Does this mean that removing labels only can be done in Cloud?

[Debra Graham]

@Diego 

I am having the same problem as @[deleted]

I've deleted all the instances of a label but it still appears in the output of the Labels List macro.  

I have detailed my problem with getting rid of old or inaccurate labels here:  

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/Deleted-labels-still-appearing-in-labels-list/qaq-p/1477236

This problem is becoming more urgent for my company as we have engaged a firm to help us with SEO.  I am trying to clean up our labels but they aren;t being entirely deleted.  They are deleted from the page they were displayed on but they still appear in the output of the Labels List macro.  We use the Labels List macro on some pages as a way for users to search for information.

[Cassandra Myer]

I set up some test labels to see the functionality of Confluence Knowledge Base and now I want to remove them. I see the same situation where even though a label is not used on a page, it shows in the labels list. If you click on it, it says no pages are available.

The labels list has a function to manually exclude labels you don't want listed. It is a bit cumbersome but I didn't have many so used this function, and now they don't show. It is a workaround in my situation, but certainly not good functionality. You should have an option with the labels list to not show a label that has no pages. 

Is this another situation where Atlassian does not have the functionality needed and you have to buy it from a vendor app?? 

[kaitlyn.morris-sturgis]

apologies, posted on accident

[Sid]

Hi Cassandra 
 I had the same problem - but not in Cloud so not sure if this will work for Cloud users.
I went to the Space admin tools -> Content Tools -> Trash and Purged the deleted pages and the labels list updated automatically.

I think having deleted pages still retains the labels till they are purged.

[Cassandra Myer]

Very good info and makes sense. I will try a test with that. Thanks!

[Cassandra Myer]

I did test this and TheJag is absolutely right. If you empty your trash (or at least of pages with labels you don't want), the labels no longer show. 

[Shawn Waliser]

Thank you @Sid ! That solution worked to remove the labels that were showing on the label index but were not on any pages.

[Andrea Rodriguez]

This works for most of my labels but I'm still having ghost labels persist that don't exist on any pages and my trash is purged.

[Rob Harker]

@Andrea Rodriguez same here.  Some labels are persisting, but I'm wondering if it will take some time for the site to be indexed and then the ghost labels will disappear.