MySql `DELETE` syntax is not very different fiom `SELECT`, so you can delete from multiple tables using a single query. Taxonomies informations in WordPress are in 3 tables: - `wp_terms` - `wp_term_taxonomy` - `wp_term_relationships` the first 2 contain term / taxonomy informations, the 3rd contains association between terms and posts. The query to delete **all** tags from WordPress db is: DELETE t, tr, tt FROM wp_terms t INNER JOIN wp_term_taxonomy tt ON t.term_id = tt.term_id INNER JOIN wp_term_relationships tr ON tt.term_taxonomy_id = tr.term_taxonomy_id WHERE tt.taxonomy = 'post_tag' Note that the prefix `wp_` can be different in your setup, it depends on `$table_prefix` setting on your `wp_config.php` file. More info [here][1]. Be sure to replace the prefix with correct value in the query for all the 3 tables. Also note that on [**multisite**][2] install, the full table name is $prefix . $blogid . '_' . $tablename` e.g. if the prefix is the default `'wp_'` the blog is 2, the 3 tables will be named: - `wp_2_terms` - `wp_2_term_relationships` - `wp_2_term_taxonomy` More info [here][3]. Finally, please, **be sure to have a full, valid database backup before running such a query**. [1]: http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php#table_prefix [2]: http://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network [3]: http://codex.wordpress.org/Database_Description#Site_Specific_Tables