Tags are a great way to organize data, so that you can sift through it fast when you need to zero in on a particular element. Color-coded tags are even better, and your Mac’s file manager Finder8 Finder Tips for Mac Newbies8 Finder Tips for Mac NewbiesNavigating files and folders using the native Mac file browser Finder is easy enough, but there are many more features hidden behind menus and keyboard shortcuts.Read More has them — those colorful little dots in the sidebar.
Each default tag gets its label from its color. You don’t have to stick with that label though, as we’ll see later on in this article. Let’s take a look at how to make the most of macOS tags.
And even more, the label added using VoiceOver on an iOs device is actually the description of the image, which you can show and change also in the Photos app on Mac, from the Info dialog window opened via the Command-I keyboard shortcut. And vice versa, if you set the description on your Mac, it will be read as the custom label on your iOS device.
- This simple app, which plugs into Windows File Explorer, supports all file types. It’s also pretty intuitive. Tags appear in a word cloud, so you can grab the one you want and drop it onto the file. Use Tags with Folders 'Ultimately, the researchers concluded the best system involves folders *and* tags.
- How to Remove File Tags with Right-Click on Mac “Tags” have replaced “Labels” in the contextual menus of Mac OS X, and allow for quick removal (or additions) of tagging from items this way.
What Can You Do With Tags?
While naming files well and moving them into logical folders keeps your data organized, tagging files takes it one step further. Tags do the same thing for your files that Gmail labelsRediscover Gmail Labels and Finally Tame Your InboxRediscover Gmail Labels and Finally Tame Your InboxThere are plenty of tricks to deal with email overload, but there's one right under your nose that you might not be using: good old Gmail labels.Read More do for you emails: add context.
With tags, you can make a variety of data easy to find at a moment’s notice. For example:
- Photos you want to edit later.
- Data that’s usable for a short time, such as flight tickets, research for blog posts, and first drafts of anything.
- Saved articles that you plan to read over the weekend.
- Receipts you want to saveThe Best Receipt Apps for Scanning, Tracking, and Managing BillsThe Best Receipt Apps for Scanning, Tracking, and Managing BillsThese receipt scanner apps will help you scan, save, and organize every bill for your personal or business needs.Read More for tax season.
What’s cool about tags on macOS is that you can combine different types of files under one umbrella. Also, you can use multiple tags both to categorize files and to narrow down your searches later.
How to Create, Edit, and Delete Tags in Finder
Finder allows you to create a tag in a handful of ways.
Tagging From the Context Menu
Right-click on a file and select Tags… in the context menu. A box with a text field pops up right there for you to enter the name of the tag you want to create. Type in that name and hit Entertwice. This creates the tag and assigns it to the file you have selected.
Assign more than one tag: To assign multiple tags to a single file, you’ll have to hit Enter after every tag name you type in and then once at the end to complete the process. If you hit Esc or click elsewhere on the screen instead of hitting Enter at the end, no new tags for you.
If you want assign one or more existing tags to a file, pick them from the list that appears right below the tag field. Just point and click! This list of tags mirrors the one that appears in the sidebar.
“Un”-assign a tag: Let’s say in the middle of tagging you decide you don’t want to use a particular tag for the selected file after all. If you select that tag in the text field and hit the Delete key, macOS will no longer use that tag for that file. This doesn’t delete delete the tag — you’ll have to bring up the tag’s context menu in the sidebar or visit Preferences > Tags for that.
Bookmark a tag: Are you curious about the tags that you can select from the context menu directly? Those are “favorite” tags for quick use in Finder menus. You get to choose which tags show up as favorites. To find out how, jump to the Manage All Your Tags section below.
Tagging From the Toolbar
Instead of bringing up the Tags dialog from the context menu of a file, summon it via the Edit Tags toolbar button when you have a file selected. A “tag box” shows up near the toolbar button. It looks and functions like the one we discussed above, so you should have no trouble making it work.
If you can’t see the Edit Tags button, it’s likely that you hid it during one of your decluttering efforts9 Tips For a Minimalist & More Efficient Mac Experience9 Tips For a Minimalist & More Efficient Mac ExperienceYour Mac's interface is clean and beautiful as it is, but with a few tweaks here and there, you can polish it up some more for a more pleasant desktop experience.Read More. To bring that button back, first right-click anywhere on the toolbar. Next, select the Customize Toolbar… option from the menu to view the entire set of available toolbar buttons. Now drag the Edit Tags button from this set to the toolbar.
Tagging From the File Inspector
You can add/remove tags from the Inspector or Get Info dialog for any file or folder. https://gotree436.weebly.com/blog/mail-app-for-mac-and-ipad. To bring up Inspector for a selected file, click on File > Get Info or press Cmd + I. Again, the tag section here is a replica of the tag creation box we saw above.
Tagging Within Applications
You’ll find the same tagging mechanism we discussed above in a couple of other places as well:
- The “document” menu — The menu that pops up when you click on the name of a file or document in applications like Preview, Pages, and QuickTime Player.
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- The Save and Save As… dialogs
Since these tagging options are available within applications, they’re applicable to files only. To tag folders you’ll have to fall back on the context menu, the toolbar, or the Inspector.
Manage All Your Tags
If you want to create, edit, and delete tags in bulk, the Tags tab in Finder’s Preferences is the way to go. Open the Preferences dialog either by clicking on Finder > Preferences… or by pressing Cmd + , on the keyboard.
Next, switch to the Tags tab. Here you’ll see a list of all the tags available for use, including any you have created on the fly via the context menu, Finder toolbar, and so on. To create new tags and delete existing ones from here, use the “+“/”–” buttons below the tag list.
To rename a tag, hit Enter when you have the tag selected. You can even assign it a different color — click on the tag’s existing color in the list to view the menu of available colors. Deselect the checkbox for any tag if you don’t want that tag to show up in the Finder sidebar anymore.
Any tag you drag from the tag list and drop into the “Favorites” area below the list will show up in Finder menus for quick selection and deselection. Drag a tag out of this area to make it disappear from the context menu.
You have probably noticed that you can manipulate tags from the Finder sidebar via their context menu. The options you can pick from are self-explanatory, so we won’t get into those. Keep in mind though the distinction between the Delete Tag and Remove from Sidebar menu options. The latter hides the tag from view, but doesn’t delete it for good.
How to Use Tags to Simplify Your File Search
You might have already figured out that you can filter files and folders by tags by clicking on any of the tags in the Finder sidebar. What can you do beyond this? We have a few suggestions:
- Search by tag in Finder. Start typing in the name of a tag or its color in the Finder search bar and you can then pick from the matching tags that show up.
- Set up a smart folder to filter by (multiple) tags8 Smart Folders You Need on Your Mac (And How to Set Them Up)8 Smart Folders You Need on Your Mac (And How to Set Them Up)A Mac Smart Folder lets you group together similar files from all over your machine. Here's how to use them and some great examples to get started with.Read More.
- Ask Siri to filter files by a specific tag.
- Organize Finder items by tags via the Sort By and Arrange By options under View > Show View Options.
- Search by tag in Spotlight by typing in tag: tag_name. It’s a pity Spotlight search for tags doesn’t seem to work for everyone, and there’s no easy explanation or solution in sight. Although, this won’t be a problem for you if you use a third-party application that supports macOS tag search.
Do You Use Tags?
We must admit that the tagging system on macOS is a little temperamental at times, but it’s still worth using. If you come across a glitch or two, relaunching Finder should fix the issue. To do that, hold down the Option key and the Cmd key, click on the Finder icon in Dock, and click on Relaunch from the menu that pops up.
If you have ignored tags on your Mac so far, we urge you to test them out. They can help you find the right files and folders with minimal effort every time.
Want more tips for using Finder on Mac? Check out how to complete tasks in a click with Finder’s Quick ActionsFinder's Quick Actions Complete Mac Tasks in One ClickFinder's Quick Actions Complete Mac Tasks in One ClickQuick Actions in macOS make it easy to create custom workflows that do repetitive tasks in seconds. Here's how to try them now.Read More.
Explore more about: macOS Sierra, Organization Software, OS X Finder.
- Missing voice memo app for mac. Thank you for this detailed and thorough walkthrough of tags in MacOS!What I have found is that I need a hierarchical approach to tags. The flat list is not really practical. For example, I might want to tag by priority, by topic, or by assignee. I can kind of do this with something like 'priority/high' or 'assignee/bob', but it's sketchy. For instance, if I then search for 'bob' (either when adding a tag to an item or when filtering), it doesn't come up. If you have more than a few tags, this flat approach starts to fail pretty quickly. I have hundreds of tags, I really need a better way to manage them!Strangely, the tag manager in Finder's preferences does not show tags alphabetically, and has no option to sort. I can drag-and-drop them to change the order, but that's crazy to do manually!You also can't select by more than one tag in the Finder, unless you create a smart folder. Ugh! Alfred to the rescue, but then I can't browse by tags to filter a result set.I can't find any way to practically manage a large set of tags. There used to be an app from CASEapps (www.caseapps.com/tags/) called Tags, but it hasn't been updated in years, the last supported version of MacOS was OSX 10.8. DEVONthink *kind of* supports tags, but only when you import or export a file. If you tag a file in DEVONthink, you can't then find that item from the Finder or Spotlight (or Alfred) with the tag.Any advice for turbo-charging Tags?
If you’ve used OS X recently, you may have noticed tags now have a distinct presence in the Finder. Maybe you’re thinking, “huh? tags?” (it’s a fair response), but actually, tags are an excellent way to categorize, sort, and instantly find your important stuff.
Tags are exactly what they sound like they are. You’re basically just selecting files and adding labels. These labels are just metadata for describing file content. You can add as many tags as you need, so maybe you add the tag “tax returns” to your tax returns, and you tag other tax-related paperwork as “receipts.”
You can also add another tag, say just “taxes” to all your receipts and returns. That way, you can see everything tax-related in one simple search. This is just one example. Let’s take a closer look at how this actually works.
Getting to Know Finder Tags Better
![Labels Labels](/uploads/1/3/3/2/133281942/162886160.jpg)
Here’s the Finder with the default tags in the Sidebar. This was probably your first introduction to tags in OS X.
These default tags can be easily modified. Right-click on any one and you can rename or delete it, remove it from the Sidebar, change its color, or open it in a new Finder tab. Thus, if you have a bunch of files tagged “Red,” then you can click on them to see them in that Finder window, or in a new tab.
These aren’t the only tags you can have though, in fact, you can have any and as many tags as you want. On our desktop we have some screenshots that we took, and we want to tag them so we can find them easily if we move them some place else.
We’re going to select the files, six in all, and the click the Tags button on the Finder toolbar. From here, a menu will appear. There’s all of the default tags. To add a “screenshots” tag, we type it in, and hit “Enter.”
We have added the tag “screenshots” to these six images, which is saved to the files’ metadata, so even if you transfer them to a different folder, drive, or even another Mac, you can still find these files with the “screenshots” tag.
Now, we have a new tag in the Sidebar, which when you click on it, will display every file to which we’ve attached that tag. Again, we could right-click on it and rename it, change its color, or delete it. Note that, even if you delete the tag, the files will remain.
From here, you can continue to add tags to your files, further categorizing them so its easy to find a specific group of files. When you click on “All Tags…” in the Finder Sidebar, you see all the tags on your system.
The previous icon view gives us little detail as to where these files are all located but we can change the view, and get an exact idea of where they are in the Finder.
Most of these files only have one tag attached. Adding more tags means your can define your files for easier searching. You don’t have to use the Finder Sidebar to search for files by tags. Once you’ve tagged enough files, you can just type your query into Spotlight or the Finder search feature.
Searching for Files by Tag
Let’s take a relevant example, something a lot of people deal with often. You’re looking for a job, and you want to update your old resume. You actually have your old resumes, somewhere, maybe in your documents folder or a cloud folder but you’re not sure where. What you are sure of is that you were smart enough to tag your job search stuff last time you updated it.
So, if we want to find old resumes, we can use our “resume” tag. We type our search and we can view results by filename or tags.
Again, the same thing with cover letters.
What if we want to see all our old resumes and cover letters in one result? In this case, we add another tag to all relevant files. First we search for our “resume” tag and add another, “job search”; we do the same thing to our “cover letters” files.
While we’re at it, we can pick out the “job search” documents that are most relevant to us, then we’ll simply tag them as “blue”. Now, we have quite a few tag searching options for this group of files.
We’ll demonstrate first using Spotlight. You can string multiple tags together into one search. This one will list all our “job search” files with the “blue” tag. Using these two tags together ensures we only see files matching this criteria versus all “job search” tags or all “blue” tags.
Spotlight is simply easier to use in cases such as this, however, you can do something similar in Finder.
First, type your search query and choose “Tags” from the menu option.
Now, add additional tags to your search query.
It is also possible to build search queries like that and save them for later. Saved searches can be named and saved wherever you like. You can also add them to the Sidebar for easy access.
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The more precisely you define your files, the more accurate your searches will be. Simply tagging image files as “images” won’t help you much because you can search for images as a “kind” of file. Tags work best if you use them to describe the content of a file rather than the type of file.
Tags Preferences
Finally, here is our Tags preference tab, which can be accessed from the Finder preferences (“Command + ,”). This is going to make your life quite a bit easier when it comes to overall tag management.
![Labels Labels](/uploads/1/3/3/2/133281942/945035011.jpg)
First of all, you can show or hide tags in the Sidebar. You can also hide tags from the Sidebar by dragging tags out it, but the Tags preference gives you better control over the process.
Click on the circle next to the tag to change its color or double-click on the tag’s name to rename it. When you do this, all files with that tag attached to it will be updated.
At the bottom of these preferences, you can use the “+/-” buttons to add/remove tags. Note, you can select multiple tags if you want to delete more than one at once.
You can also drag tags onto the Favorite Tags area. When you do this, your tags will be added to the Finder favorites. So if we drag “job search” to “Favorite Tags,” we now see them in the “File” menu.
Labels For File Tabs
From here select some files, and from the File menu or a quick right-click context menu, you can quickly add (or remove) favorite tags.
The more tags you add, the better the tags system in OS X works. Over time, as you keep adding them, your important stuff will be more readily and instantly available. That means less opening the Finder, opening a folder and subfolders thereafter, looking for the specific file you want, and then finally double-clicking to open it.
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Moreover, over the course of time, as new files are added and old files are archived, having a good tagging scheme on your system means that it won’t be as difficult to locate things that may not necessarily be a priority, but you may need from time to time.
We’d like to hear your opinion now. If you have a questions or comments about OS X’s Finder tags, please leave your feedback in our discussion forum.
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