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Known Participant
January 14, 2018
Answered

Moving child keyword out of parent list to make it a top level key word in Lightroom 6

  • January 14, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 2774 views

Hello.. this is just what the question is asking... I have a large number of child keywords that have been inadvertently listed under a parent. I want to move them from being a child to be a top level but if I try to drag and drop them from out from below the parent, they can only go into another top level keyword and can't be a top level themselves... any ideas?... thaks...

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    Correct answer Rob_Cullen

    I agree- it is tricky getting the highlight to appear is the hard part.

    Perhaps it is just your word description, but a "slot" does not open, or expand the keywords apart. It will only be the feint highlight to see that determines 'where' your keyword drops in the hierarchy.

    The number of photos with a Keyword assigned should have no bearing on the ability to re-arrange Keyword hierarchies.

    I can select multiple keywords (Hold [Ctrl] and click) and drag them to a 'top' level to appear as 'Parents'  (Numbers sort before letters)

    And then drag them back as 'Child' keywords under "WHEN#"

    2 replies

    Participating Frequently
    October 11, 2023

    I am very methodical so tried as many different ways to achive this with about 10% success rate. It appears that newly made (or edited) or made with a newer version of LR, keywords do not 'seem' to exhibit the dropping inbetween problem. Time is important so the quickest way to do this with older keywords is ...

    1) Rename the keyword (i.e. Sunset becomes Sunset1)

    2) Move keyword as suggested by the clever Rob Cullin (No entry icon should change to rectangle and when moving a narrow highlighted line should appear between parents, drop on to this line)

    3) Rename back to original (Sunset1 becomes Sunset)

    Not sure if this is a bug but as software develops often little hiccups get left behind.

     

    If for some reason this does not work (I only tested on a few devices), the following should be 100% ...

    1) Select (highlight) the original child keyword, rename slightly (i.e. add suffix 1 to end of name), then use the right arrow that now appears to show all keyworded images,

    2) CTRL + A to select all

    3) Create New Keyword Tag (+ icon left of Keyword List), then in pop-up, Keyword Name: add same name as original child keyword, then in the Creation Options section at the bottom ...

         3a) Ensure only Add to selected photos is ticked 

    4) Delete the old sub-keyword.

    Rob_Cullen
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 14, 2018

    Dragging the Keyword to a new place needs superfine mouse movement to place it where you want.

    As you drag you will see the cursor change to a pointer with a rectangular box.

    The place to drop the keyword has to be highlighted- and that is the subtle detail- To place it to a top level you need to see a fine highlight line between other 'parent'  keywords, or at the top of the Keyword list (it will sort alphabetically).

    If a Keyword line is 'fully' highlighted, then you are placing it as a 'Child' under a 'Parent'.

    Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .
    Known Participant
    January 14, 2018

    Yes, that is how the "science" is supposed to work... but I've had to turn it into a low tech video game as there is no rhyme or reason as to when the slot will open. Some folders will not open it no matter how much it lingers. Some groups won't open the slot but then if I drop two or three folders then the slot will open. And then when I grab one of the folders that was in the last group that wouldn't open the slot, then the folder will open the slot... then I grab another from the group but it won't open the slot....  the slot seems to be very tempramental and seems to reject larger files or larger groups more than it does folders with 1-5 photos in it.... not a very efficient way to move keywords... I think it's going to be a 2-3 hour process!