Deleted labels still appearing in labels list

Question

From https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/add-remove-and-search-for-labels-136419.html:

You can't remove, consolidate or manage labels directly. A label is created by adding it to a page for the first time, and ceases to exist once its been removed from all pages it was added to.

I have removed some labels from all the pages but they still appear in the list of labels displayed by the Labels List macro.

For example, I deleted the label quarantines from all pages, yet it still appears in the list of labels displayed by the Labels List macro.

Screenshot of output of Labels List macro:

However, if you click the quarantines label, you find there are no pages with that label.

Screenshot showing no pages with the label quarantines:

This issue has some urgency as we are trying to clean up our labels before we start working with a firm that we have hired to help us with SEO.

Elías Sigurðsson_bsou6s · Answer

@atlassean I cannot believe this is a big issue to solve, can you really fix it please.

Laurie Egbert · Answer

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-58953

@atlassean please move this up in priority and then assign to someone. Not being able to entirely delete a label from a space once it's been removed from all sources does not provide a user friendly experience. Not for myself as a content creator and especially not from users looking for labels they can choose from.

In our case, we used to use just the word map. We are now moving to more specific labels for our content and what was map, is now map-chart. If users see map still on the list, it's likely some will start using it again.

Thank you for your consideration.

Bill Sheboy · Answer

Hi @Debra Graham

This appears to be a known defect found in 2018:

Labels not being used anymore still show on Labels list macro

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-58953

Best regards,

Bill