# Remove specific OTUs?

**URL:** <https://forum.mothur.org/t/remove-specific-otus/2282>\
**Category:** Commands in mothur\
**Created:** [March 6, 2015, 3:51am UTC](https://forum.mothur.org/t/remove-specific-otus/2282 "2015-03-06T03:51:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![weebeige](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dfb087/32.png) [@weebeige](https://forum.mothur.org/u/weebeige)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2015, 3:51am UTC](https://forum.mothur.org/t/remove-specific-otus/2282/1 "2015-03-06T03:51:44Z")

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I’m wanting to remove a list of OTUs from my data as they are likely contamainants. From the wiki, I understand the remove.otus command can be used to remove OTUs associated with a group, but not remove a specified OTU from all groups. Is that correct? If so, is there another command/or work around that can be used to remove specific OTUs?

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**Author:** ![westcott](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/forum.mothur.org/westcott/32/18_2.png) [@westcott](https://forum.mothur.org/u/westcott)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2015, 5:53pm UTC](https://forum.mothur.org/t/remove-specific-otus/2282/2 "2015-03-06T17:53:58Z")

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I think you are looking for this, [http://www.mothur.org/wiki/Remove.otulabels](http://www.mothur.org/wiki/Remove.otulabels). You create an accnos file with the list of OTUs you want to remove. Something like:

OTU001  
OTU005  
…

Mothur will remove these OTUs from your files.

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**Author:** ![weebeige](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dfb087/32.png) [@weebeige](https://forum.mothur.org/u/weebeige)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 2:09am UTC](https://forum.mothur.org/t/remove-specific-otus/2282/3 "2015-03-10T02:09:43Z")

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That worked great. Thanks.