Actually even (or because) I have used the Mac regularly since 1987 I am very slow on adopting new features (I also try and stay with the basics as much as possible to be better able to help Mac clients, though of course you can do both). So, even though I early saw the point of labels (similar to adding info to photos – also bad on that), I seldom used the tags as there had to be a special reason and I seldom do repetitive things on the Mac. BUT, these days they are indispensable while I’m writing a bicycle related book so I can keep track of photos for it without having to move them out of their original locations. I ended up copying them all over after having selected and edited all, but then I use another tag to note the ones I have so far used. For such tasks it is really helpful. It is also good to be aware of that you can edit the names of the tags if you have run out of colours.
I’ve used them often since way back in the MacOS days, when they were just “labels” - back then you could choose one color only, and there were no keywords associated with them, but my useage has been relatively unchanged since the 90’s:
- red, orange, yellow for files/folders I’m working with or organizing, like document drafts or pictures I’m sorting.
- green for things I’m done with, final versions of a file, or a folder I’m done organizing.
- blue for important files that I want to keep and make sure I never delete.
- purple for backup/previous versions of a file that I don’t want to discard (I started doing this in the days before Time Machine).
- Grey for files I probably don’t need anymore, but just haven’t trashed yet (usually in my downloads folder).
I really haven’t ever developed a workflow that includes the keyword tags, but I did rename the colors to things like “draft” to match my usage.
I tried them for a brief period years ago. I voted Never since I didn’t find them useful. The details are long lost to me, but they were particularly problematic because there were some applications that also created what they claimed were Finder tags, but were using a a different file system property. Sometimes they worked with the Finder and sometimes they didn’t.
I use tags occasionally, most commonly when organizing folders and files. I pick one color for started and another for done. When done with the project, I get rid of the tags.
Tags? Reminds me of lines from a Sierra Madre sketch between Gold Hat and Dobbs. Then again, I am very text oriented and have trouble relying on icon pictures (takes me a while to decipher the picture), complicated by a significant degree of color blindness. All my folders are in list view wherever possible, as are the files within them, sorted either alphabetically or by order of creation/modification. I recognize files and folders by their names only. When I’ve TRIED to rely on icons to narrow my looksee on my desktop for documents by application application icon, lo and behold, the developer goes and changes them. I still confuse the “new” FileMaker file icon with BBEdit the BBEdit icon. I think tags would be too hard for my peanut brain to remember which tags I assigned for which categories. I see they are apparently very useful for some folks, though. I have no objection to them (not the question, of course), but I don’t need no tags.
I use tags to add the artist’s name to my music files to give me another way to sort them. I don’t like Apple’s default sorting at all and don’t use it. (For instance, Apple’s sorting gives each song in a multi-artist album its own folder two levels deep.) I did this even when “Comments” was the only available method.
Haphazard use of coloured dots in column view, meaning depends on the enclosing folder.
I was vexed when dots replaced highlighting the whole file name but now
that approach looks pretty ugly when I fire up an old machine.
Is it possible to choose the font used for individual file names (not for the background) ?
I’d like to experiment with names set bold or in colour.
Spotlight seems to work well at finding about anything, even 25 year old files and docs.
Agree
But I still use them to mark important folders in the Finder
e.g., Library > Application Support That’s about the only folder I access much these days in the library. But I use it for a few other folders.
This is my only current use of Finder tags. Too many other features to keep up with.
I first started using them ( just after the mavericks article) for images/photos and still do. The next step was to keep track of groups of data files of different types when working on projects: analyses by certain parameters or of certain classes of data for example. The tird way is to keep track of the current versions of databases or spreadsheets that are frequently revised. Tagging them with tags with certain assigned colours make them easy to spot inside folders and also easy to see all at once in a finder window even though they are in many different folders. There is a bit of overhead involved but the utility is easily worth the effort.
Never heard of this feature, not sure what I would use it for?
I said occasionally because I don’t use them on many files but the colored dots are helpful to flag the most important or most current files in a folder full of files. For example, I’ve marked the Pages document where I record my ongoing independent contractor receipts and tax payments so it stands out from all of the invoices, check images, and other work related documents.
I’d be lost without them although I wish they still colored the whole file name instead of just using a colored dot.
I’ve used them regularly since their inception. I only wish they continued to color the entire file name rather than just using a dot. The dots are so much harder to find. That’s one thing I wish they would change back. Changing it to a dot was so stupid.
I have only a few tags and I tag only a few files. For example, I have a tag, Current, that I use for files that I am currently working on. When I want to jump to one of them I click Current in the sidebar and there it is. Vary handy.
I have set up just one tag - Pictures. All of the different folders across multiple locations with images, photos, video files are now tagged with “Pictures” (green dot), and I can access all of them across multiple hard drives and Google Drive, just by selecting the Pictures tag. So useful.
With far more files and file folders on my Macs than I care to admit, I began using Tags as soon as I found them years ago. I also use hierarchical naming of files and folders – whereby, the name itself helps like files and folders sort together and appear in order. Add Tags to this naming practice, and it makes very quick work of a search. [Very, very simple EX: ‘Tech’ files use the orange tag. All tech files also use the word 'tech - ’ at the start, the rest of the name depends on the topic. When I need a tech file about a specific topic, I click on the orange tag, and scroll to the first letter of the name or search it. ]
If Apple provided an automated ‘tag’ for all non-tagged files (Yes, I have asked Apple more than once for it), that would make tags even more important and useful, for me.
I am an inveterate tagger when I use Evernote. It’s useful for the tens of thousands of notes I’ve collected over the years. I thought they would be useful in Finder (or really, Path Finder). But there are so many ways to organize and locate files that to me they truly are not worth the time it takes to assign them.
Like @allen.gainsford, I use them for grouping. In my case, the use is only occasional, most often for projects in which having an at-a-glance view of files or folders grouped by a tag (often “Done”, “In Progress”, and “Not Yet Started”) comes in handy.
The old “Label” feature was so much more helpful and efficient! I wish they’d bring that feature back, at least as an alternative to tags. Sigh…