• Welcome to the Lightroom Queen Forums! We're a friendly bunch, so please feel free to register and join in the conversation. If you're not familiar with forums, you'll find step by step instructions on how to post your first thread under Help at the bottom of the page. You're also welcome to download our free Lightroom Quick Start eBooks and explore our other FAQ resources.
  • Stop struggling with Lightroom! There's no need to spend hours hunting for the answers to your Lightroom Classic questions. All the information you need is in Adobe Lightroom Classic - The Missing FAQ!

    To help you get started, there's a series of easy tutorials to guide you through a simple workflow. As you grow in confidence, the book switches to a conversational FAQ format, so you can quickly find answers to advanced questions. And better still, the eBooks are updated for every release, so it's always up to date.
  • Dark mode now has a single preference for the whole site! It's a simple toggle switch in the bottom right-hand corner of any page. As it uses a cookie to store your preference, you may need to dismiss the cookie banner before you can see it. Any problems, please let us know!

Library module Removing most, not all, parent keywords

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Dec 29, 2017
Messages
26
Location
Seattle
Lightroom Experience
Advanced
Lightroom Version
Classic
Lightroom Version Number
Lightroom Classic 8.3
Operating System
  1. macOS 10.14 Mojave
I am trying to remove most of the parent keywords leaving the majority at the top level. I understand I should drag and drop them into that top level and the blue line shows up like it's supposed to but when I drop the keyword it does nothing. It does not move the keyword to where it indicates it should. I've also tried using SQLite but the "Find & Replace" command is greyed out making the only way possible to accomplish this very tedious to copy/paste the parent keyword to NULL about 4,000 times to get this done. I'm using the free SQLite tool in demo mode, could that be why it won't let me find & replace en masse?

Still can't understand why LR won't let me drag and drop the keywords at the top level.
 
SQLite will only process a few records in demo mode and then it might not even commit the transaction.
BUT SQLite is not the tool to use on a LR catalog file unless you are very knowledgable about the database and every relationship that might be impacted by a SQL update. Also SQLite should only be invoked on a Copy of the master catalog file.

Now to Fix your problem
;
remove most of the parent keywords leaving the majority at the top level.
Are you trying to MOVE or Remove parent keywords? If you want to flatten the hierarchy so that
Parent
.....Child
becomes
Parent
Child
Drag the Child to above the Parent until a blue line appears then Drop. If you drag the Child over the parent a blue highlight of Parent appears and this merely adds that Child as a child of that parent,
 
Your caution on SQLite is well understood and appreciated.

Removing parent keywords is what I'm trying to do. As I explained in the OP I understand the drag and drop method. The blue line appears but it does not drop as expected meaning it does not then appear with the other keywords that have no parent. There is not a duplicate keyword at that top level either. It seems it is behaving unlike it should.
 
That's how I'd expect it to work. I tried in a different catalogue and it worked as you showed. I created a screen video to show what the problem on this end is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jxyYPcooYI

The parent folder "B" was originally created to hold all of my keywords so it was a top level keyword at one point in case that has any clues as to what is going on.
 
I don't have a clue if you say that it works as defined in another catalog. There may be some catalog corruption.
Try this:
Select all of the images and use the Export as a Catalog function to build a second catalog from this data. Try the Keyword Move function in this new built catalog and see of the problem is in the current catalog only or in the data itself.
 
It is working as designed for me. If I could figure out a way of getting a video file to a place where I can link it into a reply you could see my demonstration video.
Keyword Hierarchy Demo
Cletus,

This link did not work either for FireFox or Edge, on Windows 10.

Phil
 
I don't have a clue if you say that it works as defined in another catalog. There may be some catalog corruption.
Try this:
Select all of the images and use the Export as a Catalog function to build a second catalog from this data. Try the Keyword Move function in this new built catalog and see of the problem is in the current catalog only or in the data itself.

Finally getting back to this headache. I did as you described, it works (or doesn't) the same in the new catalogue. I think the parent, top level keyword which should be nothing at all is the word "KEY" and there is no way I can see to remove that top level keyword within Lightroom. I think it can be done in SQlite but I realize that is a dangerous tool. I'm attempting to put all keywords into that one "KEY" though I'm afraid any new keywords coming in from external sources, keyword-plugin for instance, will just create new hierarchies and continue the duplication of keywords in various places thus compounding the problem yet again. Thanks for your suggestions.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top