How-to #1 – How to delete or edit tags for free on Letterboxd
Instead of finally finishing my many unfinished texts for this blog, I ended up writing this last-minute piece, which I found useful and potentially helpful to others.
If you use Letterboxd, you’ve probably noticed that some features are restricted to subscribers. One of them, which I find unjustifiable to be behind a paywall, is bulk editing or deletion of tags.
When you log a film in your diary, you can add identification tags. The problem arises when you need to remove a specific tag from dozens or hundreds of films. This requires opening each log individually and editing it manually, which quickly becomes impractical.
After quite a bit of research, I realized there wasn’t any clear tutorial with a viable alternative. I considered writing a script to solve this, but anyone familiar with automation knows the limitations and risks involved. Since this is my main account, I didn’t want to risk a ban or being flagged as spam.
It was on Reddit that I found the solution, buried in a random comment with no upvotes, lost in the middle of a discussion. That comment saved me from creating a new account and reimporting my entire history, which would have been a terrible workaround.
Even after finding the solution, I didn’t see any video or post clearly reproducing the process. So here’s a record of it, with a step-by-step guide and the main issues I encountered along the way.
1 - Exporting your data
Go to your Letterboxd account settings and export your data:
Settings > Data > Export your data > Save
2 - Locate and extract the file
Inside the exported folder, which comes compressed, you’ll find all files related to your account. In my case, the data I needed was in the diary.csv file.
3 - Edit the tags
In the “Tags” column, you’ll find all tags associated with each film. When there is more than one, they appear separated by commas.
4 - Replace or remove tags
This is where the actual change happens. You can replace one tag with another normally.
To completely remove a tag, simply deleting the text from the cell does not work. Letterboxd ignores empty fields during import and keeps the previous value.
The workaround is to insert a comma followed by a space in place of the tag you want to remove. This way, the system interprets that field as existing but empty, correctly replacing the previous tag with nothing.
Save the spreadsheet after making your changes.
5 - Save and import your data
Go back to your Letterboxd account settings and import the edited data:
Settings > Data > Import your data
During the import preview, this may appear as an empty tag or a small visual glitch. After saving, the removal is applied correctly.
The date format must strictly be YYYY/MM/DD. If it differs, the import may partially fail. Films may appear as watched, but data such as date, favorites, and tags will not be applied.
Make sure the entire date column follows this format before importing.
With this, you can edit or remove tags in bulk without paying for a subscription.
Hopefully this simple guide saves you from manual work or the need to create a new account.
See you next time （￣︶￣）↗