P: (Windows) Limit on number of keywords/folders/collections in Panel prevents scrolling to bottom

[Renee48]

Is there a limit on the number of keywords allowed?  In Library mode I cannot scroll down to the end of the alphabet.

[dj_paige]

There is no limitation imposed by Lightroom. What you are seeing is (probably) a limitation in Windows, which can be overcome by using hierarchical keywords in Lightroom.

[Renee48]

I'm not familiar with Hierarchical keywords.  Do you have an example?

[dj_paige]

Google finds at least 5 tutorials.

[Renee48]

thanks

[ViatheLens]

I do believe there is a limit, but it's very large.  If I recall correctly, it's 999 words.  That many words, however, would be difficult to access as you would need to scroll a lot!  The thing to do with key words is to have categories.  For example, a major category could be Transportation and underneath that you could have airplanes, trains, automobiles, and so on.  Another major category could be Animals and under that you could have Wild and Domestic and under each of those you could have the name of an animal, dog or cat or cow, and so on.  You can buy keyword lists or make your own.  You can drag and drop keywords as needed in order to create the hierarchy that you want.

[johnrellis]

LR on Windows has always limited the number of keywords displayed in the Keyword List panel to about 1500. See this bug report:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/bug-that-causes-collections-and-publish-servi...

Adobe has acknowledged the bug but marked the internal bug report as "deferred", meaning they explicitly decided to not take any action on it (they can always change their mind).

There are similar limitations on folders and collections:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/bug-that-causes-collections-and-publish-servi...

This is most certainly not due to a limitation of Windows. (After all, grid view in Library isn't limited to 150 rows, and Windows File Explorer can certainly display a list of more than 1500 files.) Rather, Adobe engineers took a shortcut way back when they first implemented the LR user interface.  See here for technical details:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/bug-that-causes-collections-and-publish-servi...

[Use the reply button under the first post to ensure replies sort properly.]

[Jim-Cincinnati]

I am not able to scroll to the bottom of my metadata label list.  I scroll about halfway down the list and am not able to scroll any further - the scroll bar at the right-hand side of the window is at the bottom of the window even though I'm only partway through the list.  I suspect there is a problem with the large number of labels I have.  My library has 47,000 photos and 2,800 unique metadata labels.  Is there a fix so that I can scroll through all my labels?

Lightroom Classic version 11.4

Windows 10 Home version 21H2

[dj_paige]

There is a limit to the number of items in a list that you can have. I believe this is a bug, but if so it hasn't been fixed. The solution is to have hierarchical keywords so that some sections of the hierarchy can be collapsed, and thus the list is shorter, and then you can see all of the un-collapsed portion.

[Jim-Cincinnati]

My issue is with labels, not keywords.  I do already have a hierarchical structure with my keywords and do not have the scrolling problem, as you detail in your post.  However, I don't see a way to create a similar hierarchical structure with labels.  If there was a way to create a hierarchical structure with labels, I believe that would solve my problem.  Thanks for taking the time to respond!

[dj_paige]

Okay, I don't know what you mean by "labels" but any list in Lightroom Classic are still constrained by this bug.

[Jim-Cincinnati]

OK, I understand, thanks.  This bug is disappointing.  "Label" is one of the columns that is available in the metadata section of the Library Filter bar.  If I add a Title to a photo, I also copy it to the Label field.  Doing this allows me to see all my titles and select them from the list of labels.  I find doing this especially helpful for maintaining and reusing common titles in a large library.

[johnrellis]

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"If I add a Title to a photo, I also copy it to the Label field.  Doing this allows me to see all my titles and select them from the list of labels.  I find doing this especially helpful for maintaining and reusing common titles in a large library."

I don't think that was an anticipated use of the Label field, though it should work and the bug should be fixed (though it likely never will). There are two workarounds that could apply to your workflow:

- Use hierarchical keywords instead of the Label field, under the parent keyword Titles.  You'll have to use two levels of keywords to avoid the similar bug with keywords. E.g. Title > A > A Very Big Animal, Title > B > Boys And Girls, etc.

- Use the Any Filter plugin's Filter command instead of the Label column in the Metadata browser.   You can configure the maximum number of values to display in a column to be much larger, though it might be easier if you set the maximum to, say, 100, and then use two columns to browse hierarchically through your list.  The screenshot below shows this for the Caption field (since I have hundreds of unique captions), but it would work the same for Label:

[johnrellis]

@Rikk Flohr: Photography, please consider merging this thread with the the much older bug thread "Fails on large keyword lists":

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-fails-on-large-keyword-lists-windows-only/id...

and changing the thread's name to "Fails on large lists of keywords, collections, folders, Metadata browser columns", since it's the same underlying bug.

[ScottyH]

Please see the image - I cannot scroll any further down the keyword list after the word 'coloured'. This is a much more recent problem than the separate keyword export issue I have just reported but it means that I cannot do even a manual fix of that other issue.Help much appreciated!Scott

[ronbyram]

I am in Keyword List and Trying to Cleanup/Move/Reorg my numerous Keywords.  I have created New Names (Ie. Person / Place/Things) and will move the keyword to them. But when I start at top I can move Items into the Tree. But as I scroll down towards the Keywords  starting O-Z and Try to move them, I get a Vertical then white bar. And I can not move the Keyword.  I know this must mean I have a keyword issue. But How to I identify and correct? 

[JLobert]

I have the same experience and I believe it has you do with Lightroom's memory footprint. At some point, you need you restart it to make the drag and drop work again. I restart as soon as it stops doing this, I don't push it to crash.

[JLobert]

Has this issue been fixed (either by Adobe or by Microsoft)? I had that listing limitation and saw only about 1700 keywords. After reading up on here, started using nested master keywords. Since I have been doing that, I can now see all of my remaining keywords and it is about 2800!
Windows 10, latest everything.

[johnrellis]

"My keyword list in Lightroom properly displays all keywords when running Lightroom Classic 9.2.1 under Windows 7, but the keyword list is abbreviated when running the exact same Lightroom Classic 9.2.1 under Windows 10."

The maximum number of keywords LR can display depends on the maximum size of a low-level Windows window and the pixel height of a keyword row in the Keyword List display. It's been years since I checked, but I think the maximum size of a low-level window changed somewhere between Windows 7 and Windows 10, from 2^15-1 (32,767) to 2^16-1 (65,535).  The height of a row in the Keyword List depends on the Windows display scaling (called different names in Windows 7 and Windows 10), and the LR setting Preferences > Interface > Font Size.

On my Windows 10 configuration, with Font Size set to Automatic, the Keyword List displays 3270 keywords, each row of which is 20 pixels high. This corresponds to 20 * 3270 = 65,180 pixels, leaving 135 pixels for displaying the header row and borders.  With Font Size set to 200%, the Keyword List displays 1718 keywords, each row of which is 38 pixels high. This corresponds to 38 * 1718 = 65,284, leaving 251 pixels for the header and borders.

[johnrellis]

"won't all those child words [A, B, C, ...] potentially foul up my smart collections just as my current problem does?"

No, not unless you have a "real" keyword that's a single letter.

[Jim 185]

When I did it, I dragged/dropped successfully (in groups of 20-30)

Sorry can't help you with the second question re your smart collections as I don't use them.

[rgs731]

Well that would be good - if I could copy, paste, drag, drop. or manage the list in any way that would let me do that. But I can't. And if I do that (after I have managed to clean this up enough to get it to function), won't all those child words potentially foul up my smart collections just as my current problem does?

[Jim 185]

Richard:

Not a perfect solution, but an option to deal with the problem (I am not going to debate if it is an Adobe issue of a Windows issue) is to group all your keywords starting with "A" in one keyword group, all your "B" words in a group etc. That reduces the  (prime) keyword numbers to a more manageable length  and you can then open up one group and do the cleaning up with that one group.

Just a thought that might help your situation or not.

[rgs731]

Dear Adobe

I have a keyword in my list that has, probably because of an unintended error I have made, developed a list of several hundred child words. Since this word is used to build a smart collection, I have to clean up this list of associated child words to get the smart collection to function correctly.

But I am on a PC and my keyword list is several hundred words long so, because of the keyword bug you have neglected to address since version 1, the child words that need to be moved to the main list will not move. No drag and drop for me. So now I have to go, word by word, through my main keyword list (and probably this child list as well) and delete all of the seldom used and alternate version words until I get the number of words low enough for the drag and drop to work so I can move the child words to the main list. 

Thanks so much for not addressing this problem. I am really looking forward to sorting this out word by word. Not really. PLEASE!! FIX THIS PROBLEM!! Thanks.

[DBarman]

I was just bitten by this bug and am disappointed that LR Classic has a problem with a modest number of keywords. I was able to use John's great suggestions to collapse some of my hierarchy so that I could resume moving keywords. I have a well-developed hierarchy. Now I am thinking that even with collapsing, this bug may return when my taxonomy grows beyond a certain point. Is there any thought to fixing this limitation or, more likely since I think Classic (I have LR 5.7 on Windows) isn't being maintained, probably not? I teach LR and had liked to always have the latest version, but once LR moved to a subscription model, I balked. Maybe it's time to just subscribe. Thanks, John, for the workaround!