How can I permanently delete customer tags?

[RussellH]

I'm trying to permanently delete a customer tag (not just remove it from a customer). I want to delete the tag so that it doesn't show up in the list of "available" tags for customer tags. Anyone know how to do that?

[Olivia]

Hi, @RussellH!

Thank you so much for sharing your question with our network.

To permanently and thoroughly remove a tag from your store, you must simply ensure that it is no longer attached to any customers. Otherwise, the tag will show up as an option so long as it is still associated with an existing customer past or present. 

To help you remove this quickly and efficiently, I found this well written solution for you to reference with screenshot step-by-step guidance. 

I trust that is exactly what you need, but if you have further questions about your customer relationship management practices please do let me know. I'd love to connect and discuss your needs further.

Warm regards,

[LauraCross]

Olivia - I am experiencing the same issue. As of October 25, old unused CUSTOMER tags re-appeared in the filter list. The solution you provided does not work. I have selected all customers and removed the unused tags (even though none of the tags were actually attached to any customers). The tags will not delete from the list. I have cleared my cache and tried different browsers. The problem persists. This is an issue for customer tags only (not happening with blog post tags or product tags). I am using the Prestige theme. Can you please advise? 

[RussellH]

Laura, you're correct. The solution that Olivia advised does not work for customer tags. I had a long back and forth with the Shopify chat support, and the conclusion was that customer tags CANNOT be permanently deleted. Seems like a weird limitation. 

[RussellH]

This was the message I received from chat support: 

"I have since escalated this over to one of our technical support teams who have reviewed this. They have confirmed that although customer tags can be deleted from Customer profiles, even when they are all removed, they will not be deleted fully. This is specifically to avoid any race conditions from the taggings table. I understand that it would be ideal to fully remove the customer tags that are no longer in use, but this won't be possible at this time. Although, I will be sure to submit some feedback to our developers regarding this."

[OddAgency]

As others on this thread have discovered, removing a tag from all customers does not remove it from available tags. 

In our scenario, this is an issue because we are implementing an app that uses case sensitive tags to apply custom options to the user experience. We are unable to delete the alternate version of this tag with varied capitalization, which throws off the app. 

Surprised that deleting unused tags isn't already available, but hoping Shopify will escalate this issue and resolve. 

[RussellH]

We are in the same boat. I completely overlooked this limitation, and it has totally derailed our launch. It seems like such a small thing, but I can't find a work-around and will probably need to look into BigCommerce or WooCommerce for solutions. 

[Olivia]

Thank you to everyone for all the feedback on this thread.

I realize this is an issue being experienced by many of you, and I want to gather a little more context to see where the problem is occurring exactly.

While it is true deleted customer tags will still show in Customer Segments, as they were used in that time frame, are users in this thread seeing the tags available elsewhere too?

Can one or two people in this thread please provide me with a screenshot example of this experience so I can make sure to take the correct next internal troubleshooting steps?


I look forward to connecting,

[RussellH]

Thanks for following up! I'll attach a screen shot. This is the view I have after clicking into a customer profile and clicking "Manage" on the Tag section on the right side of their profile. I have removed all tags from all customers over 72 hours ago (some of them weeks ago), but every customer tag I have ever created still shows up in this list as "available." Hope that clarifies things. 

[Olivia]

Thank you so much for your quick reply, @RussellH.

I have brought this issue up with our technical team, and this is actually something we would like to investigate further by looking into each store on a case by case basis until we can provide a general update.

Please reach out to our Support team at your earliest convenience, and provide a direct link to our forum thread for faster assistance and insight into the issue. 

We look forward to connecting,

[RussellH]

Thank you. I've opened a new ticket with Support and have linked to this post. Just as an FYI, I've already brought this up to support through live chat twice, and both times have gotten the same answer: that customer tags cannot be deleted from the store. 

[Olivia]

Thank you for that context, @RussellH!

We'd like to provide a Shopify-wide update to all users experiencing this, however, we have found some scenarios to be different than others which is why we need everyone to reach out for personalized troubleshooting. 

We appreciate your patience while we work through this.

Warm regards,

[RussellH]

Please see the reply below from Shopify Support that I received today. Not the answer I was hoping for... Should I have any expectation that deleting customer tags will be possible in the near-term? This reply makes it sound like any update to this functionality will be a long time coming. 

"Thanks so much for providing that list to us. Currently, it is not possible to permanently delete those unused customer tags and this is expected behaviour that our developers are aware of and that there is currently not a fix. I understand that this is not the outcome you desired, but we thank you for bringing it to our attention so that we can do something about it.

What I am going to do for you today is take everything you have stated and provide some feedback for our developers. I can guarantee that the engineering team will review the request as they review all feedback. I cannot give a timeframe for when or if the feature will be coming to the platform but it is merchants like you who continue to help improve Shopify for everybody. If you would like to follow our updates, you can check out our Shopify Changelog. Thank you for taking the time to make your voice is heard."

[RussellH]

@Olivia , following up here... Should I be expecting any more movement on this issue in the near future? I need to make a platform decision soon and need to know if removing customer tags will be possible. Thanks!

[dev-api-woes]

Experiencing the same issue as @RussellH .

To test, I created a store with sample customers with 0 orders, even deleting all customers, all the tags used, remain available.

This behavior is really counter-intuitive since Products and Collections work as expected. 

Although I understand there are reasons for doing it so, it really hampers some use cases.

Could this be done instead in the ShopifyAPI ? Maybe a developer can share a temporary workaround or something equivalent to delete unused tags?

Thank you beforehand

[Olivia]

Thank you for the follow-up on this, @RussellH.

I certainly wish I could provide an estimated timeline or update, though I do not have any public information to share at this time. With that being said, we take this feedback very seriously and use it to better our products and services everyday, and will make sure this is heard.

Please let me know if I can help answer any other questions.

Warm regards,

[RussellH]

Thank you for the reply. I'll need to look into other platforms at this point. One final thought on this... I wonder if app developers could weigh in on this as well. I was working on developing a wholesale store on Shopify, using apps like Locksmith by Lightward, Wholesale Helper, and Shipping Rates by Shipeasy. ALL of these apps depend on customer tags. All of them are made far less effective because Shopify keeps customer tags un-editable. Changing this would be a win for these apps (and many similar ones), I would think.

[linia]

Thank you for your involvement in this issue, Olivia.

I'm adding my vote that not being able to delete tags is an issue for me as well.  Developers I hired to work on my store auto created *a lot* of tags in their development, assuming they'd be able to clean up (since most systems have a way to keep tags clean), and now I have a live working store with a bunch of junk tags.  It's an issue because I use tags strategically and would love to have a clean list.

Voting to be able to delete customer tags!  Let us know if there are any updates!

[friendscottn]

Even if Shopify does not offer tag management in the admin user interface, please consider adding tag management functionality to the Admin API. That at least would allow app developers to build this missing functionality for people who obviously need it.

[Paul-VZ]

Let me guess, there is still no solution to this issue.

[jaclyn_morse]

I have the same issue with not being able to remove old tags.  Just replying to get more traction on this issue for Shopify developers to fix!

[SeanMP]

This is still not fixed. Ridiculous two years later.

[bradas7]

I am having the same issue with deleting customers' tags.  A fix would be nice.

[AustinSewing]

We are currently also experiencing this and it is especially frustrating while using the POS system. We add customer information as they check out in store and need to select tags relevant to the customer as we do this. So the list now includes several tags that employees typed in, but are not correct. The fact that they stay on the list causes other employees to also mis tag customers. This is a big issue for us that only started recently. Tags used to be deleted with ease.

[karilynae]

Yes, this is also affecting us more on the POS side of things.  Employees aren't selecting the correct Tag because the list is so full of incorrect tags.  Besides being able to clean up and delete erroneous tags, it would be helpful if staff wasn't allowed to create tags, but could only choose from the list. 

[RussellH]

We've got the same problem (but not for POS). Overtime, the list has too many incorrect tags from incorrect entries or changes, and then it's impossible to know if you've selected the correct one. 

[DougR]

Exactly! This issue has been floating around for a coupole of years at least

[VincentTan]

Hi Olivia,

We have been experiencing the exact same issue here.

I believe this is not an individual case and needs to be brought to attention with your tech team.

Not being able to delete tag permanently creates confusion and error in our workflow. 

This ticket has been here for more than 6 months now.

Please let us know if you have any further updates regarding this issue.

[SSS_Paul]

15 months and this is still an issue that people want fixed. Disappointing to say the least.

[Stonebridge]

Has a fix been implemented? My shop has a ton of outdated tags that need to be removed. They are flooding all of the tags we need to use.

[SSS_Paul]

HAHAHAHA!

No disrespect to you or your question intended by my laughter. Nothing has been done nor do I think this is a priority for them.

[SSS_Paul]

We would appreciate an update as to if this is being planned, worked on, delayed,  in development, testing stage, or even not being considered. ANY feedback from Shopify would be helpful as to either something to look forward to or to just give up and move on.

[AdaptiveTextile]

Hello @Olivia,

It seems that no one from Shopify has looked at this for over a year and you were the last one to reply. Are there any updates or hopes for this to get fixed? I'm even just trying to change a customer tag from "workroom" to Workroom" due to app and code incompatibilities, and it doesn't allow me to even make the first letter uppercase. Please pass this along to developers. This is a huge issue for many people. Thanks!

[iTipHandles]

Hi I have not heard anything further. From what has been posted I believe it could be a large job for Shopify due to some principle issues in tags. Tumbleweed!

[SSS_Paul]

It seems that the developers push out code for new features, then create bugs, then fix the bugs, and they realize that their code is faulty but they can't fix it because it would break other things so they don't fix issues that have existed for years. Instead of creating code to clear out their search function and updating its corresponding "taggings table" so the "race conditions" wouldn't occur they have decided that would be too much work and so are ignoring this.

[rowan97]

Yes, I am Facing the same problem on my Shopify store, the old customer tags which are unused and currently not tagged on any customer, continue to show up in the customers manage tags section.

Clearing Cache doesn't work.

[Rauwbrouwers]

I have the same issue. hope they fix this soon. But reading the comments form almost a year ago doesn't look promising.

[RussellH]

Yep. I just deleted the Shopify store I was developing because of this limitation. I think it's been a recent problem in the last year or so. The apps that I reached out to who are impacted by this were not aware of it.

[g-brink]

Thanks for pushing on this issue Russel. We are experiencing the same limitations with customer tags, and it is very frustrating. PLEASE fix this Shopify. It is unacceptable to sell PLUS plans at $24k/year and have basic functionality limitations like this.

[RussellH]

Unbelievable that the plus plan has the same issue... 

[joar]

Same problem here, not able to delete the tags. Any update on this @Olivia?

[MQDaniels]

Seriously limited by the inability to permanently delete tags. Any one have any success on this yet?? 

[HollyM103]

Dealing with the same problem over here, we have several tags that need to be deleted in my store and the only answer I was given was that they would need to delete all my tags and start from scratch. That would make my store no longer functional. There needs to be a way to let each store owner to be able to select specific tags and permanently delete them. This is ridiculous its taken so long to resolve an issue like this as I can see from how long this thread has been going...

@Olivia are there still no update on this functionallity? I have case sensitive customer tags I desperately need off of the active tags list. 

[Gedoku]

Facing the same issue!

Go on devs > Fix it!

[TexasTreeFarms]

We have the same problem.    We hired Shopify experts, tried shopify suggested work-arounds but are unable to remove permanently customer tags in Shopify.  It makes no sense a company with 10,000 + employees can't figure how to delete customers tags permanently.   We have tags that don't ever need to be in our system when we were setting up Shopify mistakenly added a few, to still have them in our selections 2 years later.   We have customers who have died with specific tags that we can't remove.   Taking the Shopify customer tags along the way.    Try Removing customer completely and the shopify customer tags reappears....    We removed tags from every customer, exported customer data, deleted all tags, imported new customer data and still they reappear...   We sit here and read and reread looking for the answer with none in reach.    We are currently searching for a platform that will work, without silly limitations.   Please fix this.    Not sure what to expect anymore, while I'm searching though customer tags.  @Olivia

[RussellH]

Great summary of the problem. This was the explanation I got from a support chat with Shopify: 

"I have since escalated this over to one of our technical support teams who have reviewed this. They have confirmed that although customer tags can be deleted from Customer profiles, even when they are all removed, they will not be deleted fully. This is specifically to avoid any race conditions from the taggings table. I understand that it would be ideal to fully remove the customer tags that are no longer in use, but this won't be possible at this time. Although, I will be sure to submit some feedback to our developers regarding this."

Not sure how software/tag limitations are possibly related to "race conditions", but that's the excuse they're running with apparently. Are there any updates on this @Olivia?

[karilynae]

If they can't delete them from the system, why can't they add in some tag management where they could be archived and then hidden from view on POS?

[percy]

Yes!  This!  What she said!

[LedaFazal]

All I can add is that this is a baloney excuse. And people still wonder why Shopify has so many critics and a poor value.