Duplicate Keywork Tags

Question

I assigned the keyword tag "plane" to several photos one at a time. Instead of one tag assigned to several photos, I now have multiple instances of the "plane" tag, each assigned to one photo. How did this happen and how can I assign all the photos to one "plane" keyword tag and remove all the duplicates?

Greg_S. · Accepted Answer

What OS and version of Elements are you using? How did you assign the tags?

Frankly, I have never seen this happen without some message popping up warning you that there is a duplicate tag name being given.

You can fix the issue by:

Selecting all of the plane tags in the Keyword Tag hiearchy
Right-click on one of them
Choose Merge Keyword Tags from the context menu
A dialog will then appear asking you which one of the several tags you want to use. All other tags with the same name will be deleted.

Greg_S. · Answer

Eric, you are using a method of tagging that most Elements users probably don't discover. IMO, the preferred method of tagging is to create the tag in a hierarchy and either drag the tag to the selected thumbnail(s) in the grid or vice versa - select and drag the thumbnail(s) to the tag in the keyword list. See this HelpX article for more details.

Now, having said that, I should add that Elements 2024 has a very effective Smart Tag analysis. I bet that if you do an Organizer search for plane, most if not all of your plane photos will appear. (There may be some false positives.)

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