Tags

Adding tags to an image#

Type tags into the input on the detail page, separated by spaces. Wrap a multi-word tag in double quotes to fold its spaces to underscores, and prefix with a category to file the tag there: artist:"john doe" blue_eyes 1girl adds john_doe as an artist tag and the other two as general tags.

Tag names are lowercase, up to 200 characters, and accept most characters (accented letters, CJK, punctuation) except space, " and *, which belong to the search syntax. girls'_frontline, fate/grand_order and 東方project all work.

To tag many images at once, use Add tags manually in the gallery’s Actions chooser (applies to the whole current search) or in the batch bar (applies to the checked thumbnails). Remove tags on the same surfaces strips tags by name, by source, by auto-tagger, or wholesale.

Reading an image’s tags#

The sidebar lists the image’s tags grouped by category, metadata first (rating, year, meta, medium), then what is in the image (artist, character, and the rest, with general last), alphabetically within a group so a tag is where you expect it. Each row is [x] tagname marker count: the [x] takes the tag off the image, the name searches for it, and the count is how many images in the library carry it. Hovering a name spells it out in full (long ones are cut to fit) along with any other spellings aliased to it. Each category heading has its own [x] that clears the whole category after a confirmation.

The marker between the name and the count is one of three:

• stale, with the name struck through: the source that gave you this tag no longer lists it. The tag stays on the image until you decide; a remove all link at the bottom of the list clears every stale tag in one go.
• 87%: an auto-tagger is the only thing vouching for this tag, and that is how sure it was. The percentage goes away once you or a booru also apply the tag.
• x3: three sources agree on this tag. Hover to see which, and when each one applied it.

Tags that arrived through an implication (you added hatsune_miku, so vocaloid came with it) sit indented and dimmed under the tag that brought them, and leave when it does, so they carry no [x] of their own. Hovering one names the tag that brought it.

Under the input, Just added echoes the tags this session put on the image.

The [categories] / [sources] switch at the top of the list regroups it by who applied each tag instead of by category: you first, then the boorus, then the auto-taggers. A tag several of them agree on is listed under each one, so you can read who agrees on what. In this view an [x] withdraws that source rather than deleting the tag: a tag another source also applied stays on the image and just leaves this group, and only goes for good once the last source vouching for it is dropped.

Pressing r starts keyboard tag editing: the arrows move through the list, Enter removes the highlighted tag, Escape stops.

The Tags page#

The Tags page is the catalog view: every tag, with its category, usage count and controls. Points that are not obvious from the controls themselves:

• Rename can keep the old name as an alias, so searches built on the old spelling keep working.
• Alias to moves the selected tags’ images onto the canonical tag and leaves the old names behind as zero-usage aliases. Merge is the same operation among the selected tags themselves: pick the survivor, the rest become its aliases.
• Implied tags (declared with Imply, or edited on the tag detail page) are real tags for search purposes.
• Find aliases and implications (shown when a paired monloader has the Hydrus PTR enabled) pulls each selected tag’s known relations from the Public Tag Repository into your catalog. A tag the PTR does not know under your spelling is asked about under its aliases too, and the PTR’s own preferred spelling lands as an alias of yours. Nothing is removed or sent. A re-run also reconciles earlier pulls: relations the PTR no longer lists move under a stale heading on the tag detail page, for you to drop if you agree. See Lookup.

In the sidebar’s search box, plain text matches from the start of the name and * matches anything anywhere: kimono finds kimono_dress but not black_kimono, while *kimono* finds both.

Two sidebar filters are not obvious from their labels:

• Stale finds tags a source dropped on its last refresh: Has stale for any dropped usage, Fully stale for tags whose every use was dropped (safe to delete).
• Used by answers “what does this booru actually tag with”, where the Origin column only answers “what did it introduce”: a tag danbooru invented and gelbooru later used reads danbooru under Origin and both under Used by.

Folded duplicates cleans up tags an older pull stored folded (before monbooru accepted the full character set), like fate_grand_order where the source really has fate/grand_order. Refresh the affected images so the corrected spelling arrives, run Find folded duplicates from Settings -> Maintenance, then open the filter: it lists each old spelling next to the corrected tag, and Merge into corrected spelling collapses the ones you pick (the old name stays as an alias).

On a tag’s detail page, the aliases and “implied by” lists group by whoever declared each entry, and a group’s [x] drops the whole group in one go - the way to undo a PTR pull or one source’s relations without clicking them off one at a time.

Tags are never deleted automatically: removing a tag’s last image leaves the catalog row at zero usage. Delete rows explicitly from the Tags page when you want them gone.

The Categories page manages the categories themselves. Built-in categories can be recolored but not renamed or deleted; custom ones can be renamed, recolored and deleted.

Ratings and the SFW ceiling#

Each image carries at most one rating tag, from a fixed set ranked general < sensitive < questionable < explicit. Adding a rating by hand replaces whatever was there, even when the new level ranks below the old one: your choice always wins, including over an auto-tagger’s.

The four names are fixed: you cannot rename one, move it, or fold it into another tag. You can go the other way and alias an ordinary tag onto a rating, which is how you clean up a library that arrived with its own spelling for the same thing - a safe or nsfw tag from an import, or a leftover meta:explicit. Select it on the Tags page, use Alias to with rating:explicit as the target, and its images pick up the rating. Images already rated higher keep the level they had, so folding a tag in never makes something visible that your ceiling was hiding. Only the four canonical names are protected: any other tag sitting in the rating category is an ordinary tag you can rename, move or fold.

The footer carries the SFW ceiling: click a rating level to hide every image ranked above it. The ceiling follows you across pages and applies to gallery browsing, related images, batch operations on the current search, and auto-tag runs, so an action scoped to “the current search” can never touch images you cannot see. Setting it back to explicit turns it off.