# Can't delete custom labels?

**URL:** <https://forums.plex.tv/t/cant-delete-custom-labels/738222>\
**Category:** General Discussions\
**Created:** [August 22, 2021, 8:56pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/cant-delete-custom-labels/738222 "2021-08-22T20:56:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Chumbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e480ec/32.png) [@Chumbo](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Chumbo)\
**Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 8:56pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/cant-delete-custom-labels/738222/1 "2021-08-22T20:56:12Z")

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I’m amazed at how common and old this problem is?! It seems it’s been around for years now with many Plex Pass members complaining and no real solution at hand!  
I dare to hope that by now this has finally been resolved…how does one go about it?  
As many have mentioned, I have labels with no content and no way to remove them?!  
Thanks,

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**Author:** ![tom80H](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/tom80h/32/19753_2.png) [@tom80H](https://forums.plex.tv/u/tom80H)\
**Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 10:05pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/cant-delete-custom-labels/738222/2 "2021-08-22T22:05:33Z")

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I’ve recently run into this too – it appears this can happen under some circumstances.

There’s a manual fix described in this thread:

> [@Can't delete a label](https://forums.plex.tv/t/cant-delete-a-label/465914):
>
> There are several threads similar to this but none have resolved answers. I have some labels where i’ve used a + in the middle IE: mom+dad it looks like plex also made an additional tag without the + ie “mom dad” I have three labels like these with the +. Two of them somehow made additional labels with a space. The label with the space instead fo the + aren’t linked to any media. I cannot get them to delete for the life of me. How can I force delete a label. Any help would be greatly appreciated…

short version:

1. Execute the `Plex SQLite` app (in the app folder) in the command prompt (power shell, terminal…)
2. enter `.open "<path to database>"`, pointing to the the `com.plexapp.plugins.library.db` file in the server data directory (-\> `Library` \> `Plex Media Server` \> `Plug-in Support` \> `Databases`)
3. enter `Delete from Tags where Tags.tag="<name of the tag>" and Tags.tag_type=11;` and press `return`
4. reload the web app to verify the tag is gone
5. exit the command shell app by entering `.exit` and pressing `return`

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**Author:** ![Chumbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e480ec/32.png) [@Chumbo](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Chumbo)\
**Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 11:07am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/cant-delete-custom-labels/738222/3 "2021-08-23T11:07:05Z")

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Thanks for the reply but…WOW, this is just ridiculous!?  
One has to be a computer engineer to be able to simply delete…an unused label!!?  
This is crazy stupid and unbelievable it hasn’t been resolved yet after so many years!

I have my PMS on a QNAP NAS so I only use the Web App therefore I can’t even apply this solution - assuming I even knew how!

So the lesson here is to NOT use labels then…just great 😒

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2021, 11:07am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/cant-delete-custom-labels/738222/4 "2021-11-21T11:07:18Z")

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