How can I exclude email sigs from auto tag?

Hi Sean! Im took a look at your previous ticket and I think what the advocate was saying was that you could update the tags on your ticket via the API. The ability to exclude something from the auto-tag feature is not available and to be honest, I generally recommend that people avoid using that feature as it causes more problems than it will solve.

With respect to deleting tags from tickets in bulk, you can using the Update Tickets endpoint that he mentioned in the ticket. Using the code example in that link, it would look something like this, where you provide the proper credentials and ticket IDs that you want to remove:

curl https://{subdomain}.zendesk.com/api/v2/tickets/update_many.json?ids=1,2,3 \
 -d '{"ticket": {"remove_tags":["email"]}}' \
 -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
 -v -u {email_address}/token:{api_token} -X PUT

Thanks for getting back to me.

Amusing to hear someone in advocacy recommending that people don't use a feature!  I agree that if the auto-tag feature can't ignore email footers then its next to useless.  I wrote a python script that stripped out those tags however one glaring problem is that I can't modify archived tickets.  The consequence is that I can only update the last 3 months of tickets which again, renders the process pretty much useless.  

A customer's data set is their own property.  By all means, add in configs that offer security (like having to check the box to permit editing closed tickets) but service provider should never completely prevent a customer from modifying their data as they see fit.  We've been using Zendesk for a little over 12 months and due to a poorly-performing feature, I can't derive any knowledge from tag data except the last three months.

I totally understand where you're coming from, which is why I'm vocal about my feelings about that particular feature. There are certainly situations where customers can effectively use auto-tagging, however my experience has been that it only causes headaches like the ones that you're experiencing. Part of the “advocate” name means that we're advocating on behalf of the customers and I've definitely done that in this situation. 

I really wish that I had something better that I could offer you in this situation, because I truly get the frustration. 

Thanks for your help, Greg.  I've appended the ticket to see if they can see to updating those archived tickets from their end.

Hi Greg,

Support is unable to alter our data but repeats the claim that what I want to do, modify archived tickets, can be done via the API.  My understanding is that archived tickets are inviolate.  Do you know which is correct?

Thanks,
Sean