How To REMOVE DUPLICATE KEYWORDS In LIGHTROOM Classic

Lightroom Classic is a great tool for organizing images but duplicate keywords can make it difficult to find the photos you are looking for. Redundant keywords create confusion and slow down your workflow.
In this tutorial, we’ll walk you through five easy steps that you can follow to remove duplicate keywords from your Lightroom Classic Catalog. If you follow these steps in order then you can declutter your Keyword List without losing the ability to find your favorite images with a keyword search at some point in the future.
In a perfect world, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic would prevent us from creating duplicate keywords in the first place but this program currently lacks this kind of intelligence. Instead, duplicate keywords often get created when you mix flat and hierarchical keywords together.
Keyword hierarchies, where one keyword is nested inside of another, sound like a good idea on paper, but in reality, a flat list of keywords is the superior choice for most photographers.
With a clean keyword list, you can focus on what you do best - capturing and editing stunning photographs!
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:33 How Duplicate Keywords Get Created In Lightroom
01:52 How To Remove Hierarchical Keywords
03:45 How To Remove Duplicate Keywords In Lightroom
05:58 Conclusion
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[@stevejarvis186]

Absolutely fantastic advice David, I`ll now be going through my LRC catalogue of 97,000+ photos and having a real spring clean,even though were at the height of yet another poor British summer! LOL

[@FocusPhotoSchool]

Thank you! I hope that you have a fabulous summer and that over time you can cleanout all your duplicate keywords.

[@peterjohnson1739]

I’ve just watched another video that was extolling the virtues of using hierarchical keywords. You imply that a drawback of that approach is that one can end up with duplicates and you suggest only using flat keywords. Do hierarchical keywords have a place or are you saying avoid using them because they can easily produce duplicates and make your LrC catalogue a mess?

[@FocusPhotoSchool]

This is a good question! In my experience, hierarchical keywords are not useful for most Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic users. First, they add complexity and often lead to accidental duplicates.
Second, they are no more efficient when searching than flat keywords.
Third, they will not sync with the cloud-based type of Adobe Lightroom or Lightroom on the Web.
My take: unless your photography is centered around subjects that have an established hierarchical classific system like plants or animals, and unless you use that kind of rigid classification on a daily basis, then stick to flat keywords in your Lightroom Catalog!

[@peterjohnson1739]

@@FocusPhotoSchool Thank you. That makes sense. When seeing the illustration on hierarchical keywords I thought it would be simpler to put in the elements of the hierarchy as two separate keywords - e.g. National Trust, Stourhead rather than have Stourhead as a child keyword to National Trust.

[@daleantolik3956]

How to delete a keyword without removing the photos attached to that keyword?

[@FocusPhotoSchool]

I believe that I cover the process that you are seeking starting at 03:45 in this tutorial.