# How do I search for all contacts that DO NOT have a specific tag?

**URL:** <https://forum.mautic.org/t/how-do-i-search-for-all-contacts-that-do-not-have-a-specific-tag/20595>\
**Category:** General Discussion\
**Created:** [August 25, 2021, 9:41pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/how-do-i-search-for-all-contacts-that-do-not-have-a-specific-tag/20595 "2021-08-25T21:41:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![nextafter-dan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/nextafter-dan/32/5176_2.png) [@nextafter-dan](https://forum.mautic.org/u/nextafter-dan)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2021, 9:41pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/how-do-i-search-for-all-contacts-that-do-not-have-a-specific-tag/20595/1 "2021-08-25T21:41:11Z")

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How do I search for all contacts that DO NOT have a specific tag?

I’ve tried tag:!welcome and !tag:welcome, but I have one user that DOES have the welcome tag. The contact keeps showing up in the search no matter what I do. But I think it’s because he has more than one tag in general.

Does this need to have some sort of wildcard search?

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**Author:** ![adiux](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/adiux/32/5793_2.png) [@adiux](https://forum.mautic.org/u/adiux)\
**Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 6:16am UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/how-do-i-search-for-all-contacts-that-do-not-have-a-specific-tag/20595/2 "2021-08-26T06:16:53Z")

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I tried the same thing and it works like this with e.g. stages: `stage:!welcome`

Maybe we have a bug here for tags?

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**Author:** ![nextafter-dan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/nextafter-dan/32/5176_2.png) [@nextafter-dan](https://forum.mautic.org/u/nextafter-dan)\
**Post date:** [August 26, 2021, 2:28pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/how-do-i-search-for-all-contacts-that-do-not-have-a-specific-tag/20595/3 "2021-08-26T14:28:51Z")

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Maybe… the search seems to work when each contact only has one tag. But as soon as the user get more than one tag they still show up in the negative search.

I was thinking I would add contacts to certain campaigns depending on the tags they have set, but some campaigns require them to have finished a different campaign first. So, I was trying to use the existence of tags to know which campaign they should be in.

I guess I should look for a different way to do this than using tags?

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**Author:** ![adiux](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/adiux/32/5793_2.png) [@adiux](https://forum.mautic.org/u/adiux)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2021, 6:39am UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/how-do-i-search-for-all-contacts-that-do-not-have-a-specific-tag/20595/4 "2021-08-28T06:39:47Z")

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You can also add contacts to segments based on other segments. Or in your case: add them not to segments based on other segments.

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**Author:** ![nextafter-dan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.mautic.org/nextafter-dan/32/5176_2.png) [@nextafter-dan](https://forum.mautic.org/u/nextafter-dan)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2021, 4:34pm UTC](https://forum.mautic.org/t/how-do-i-search-for-all-contacts-that-do-not-have-a-specific-tag/20595/5 "2021-09-01T16:34:19Z")

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Thanks! I ended up using Segments instead with the correct exclusion filters added.