Tools > Merge Nodes

Keyboard shortcut: M

Merge the currently selected nodes into one node.

Note: There are different activation steps for this tool which are covered at Select Move tool (you have to hold "Ctrl" while moving object).

• The order of selection matters, as the remaining node will keep the position of the last selected node.
• The object id and object history of the oldest node with at least one parent will be preserved. If no parent object exists, the oldest node with lowest, positive id will be used (see #17866).
• Ways will be silently deleted if their child node number drops below two, see below.
• All tags with only a single value and all relation memberships from all nodes will be added and the Tags/Memberships Conflict Dialog will open if manual decisions are needed. In normal user mode it will additionally warn before adding any tag or membership the nodes do not have in common, like Combine Ways, see Combine Confirmation.

Can't merge because way still in use

The nodes you merge may be part of ways. If you merge them these parent ways may loose one or more of their nodes. In some cases the number of nodes left in these ways may drop below 2. Ways with less than 2 nodes don't make sense and JOSM tries to delete them.

In some cases, though, a way to be deleted could still be in use, for instance, because a relation is referring to it. JOSM aborts merging nodes in these cases. Instead, it displays the following warning message:

Click on Abort Merging to close the dialog. The selected nodes are not merged.

Target position depends on last selection and advanced setting

Advanced Preferences

One of 3 modes can be set in the advanced preferences with the merge-nodes.mode key:

• merge-nodes.mode=0 - default and simple: last selected node will be used as position of resulting node
• merge-nodes.mode=1 - to average locations of all selected nodes
• merge-nodes.mode=2 - weighted average where nearby nodes have lower weight than remote

Before merge (initial state):

After merge with merge-nodes.mode=0 (latest selected node is important):

(one of 9 positions, depending on the last node in selection)

After merge with merge-nodes.mode=1 (without weight):

After merge with merge-nodes.mode=2 (weighted average):

See also

• Select Move
• Improve Way Accuracy - over time many mappers switch to this tools instead of manually selecting-and-moving each node
• #6696 - patch about merge-nodes.mode

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