Hi, It seems that perhaps there are 2 issues here, and that there is a difference between "labels" and "space labels"/"categories", which operate as labels but at the space level. 

However, I would also say that space labels should act like regular labels should act and disappear when not in use, including when a page is in the trash which has not been purged (hence, out of use). When a page is sent to the trash, the label should be deleted/or made inactive and not displayed. If restored, it would then be moved to active and not in the trash, then the label could be re-activated, but the label shouldn't show when the page it represents is in the trash.   

Space labels can be seen/edited here:

(ConfluenceBaseURL)/confluence/spaces/viewspacesummary.action?key=<SpaceKey>

and viewed here: 

(ConfluenceBaseURL)/confluence/spacedirectory/view.action

Hello swanjere, mark.wittig,
I was looking into this issue, to understand the current behavior of labels in Confluence, and found it to be like so.

1. When a new label is added to a page for the first time, an entry for the label is added to the database.
2. When all pages with the label are removed, the label would still exist in the database.
3. Once the deleted pages are purged from the Space trash, and there's no mention of the label on any pages, the label itself is removed from the database and we're no longer able to find it.
   • So in this case, when a page is deleted, the label still exist, until the page is permanently deleted from the trash.
4. When the label is removed from all pages (current and in trash), the label is removed from the database.
5. Once the labels are removed from the database, they do not appear on any pages, or search as well, even on the link below.
   • (ConfluenceBaseURL)/labels/listlabels-alphaview.action

I've tested the above on the latest version of Confluence at this time, Confluence 7.3.1, and I was wondering if the behavior above is what you're looking for, and if not, what the suggested behavior would be for you?

• Do we want the labels deleted when the page exist in the trash?
• Or some other behavior entirely.

Hoping to hear from you on the above.

Cheers,
Sattesh Maran

I share the mind of the comment of Jeremy Swan. Some Users tagging pages with their lastname (personal data). So we will have problems with GDPR.

I'm having the same issue and I cannot believe that Atlassian won't fix this. The least you could do is update your documentation and add verbiage on the label section warning your customers that "Labels created and assigned to spaces will become  permanent and you can't remove them without buying expensive plugins or screwing with your database".

We're on 6.15.6 and the issue is still there.

We're on 6.10.1 - issue still there. - @Confluence_Devs, please fix this.

Thanks