I wanna become a tagging demigod. Personal recommendations?

While it's not exactly a tag-based system, I have recently built Deskboard, that turns your folders into visual boards where you can bring notes, voice memos, annotations, tasks, and other stuff right next to your files. And it's heavily customisable. Since you are looking for file organisation, it can be a total gamechanger. https://deskboard.geeke.app Btw it's completely free :)

Just wanted to update on this that I will be adding tags to Deskboard, too. So you can categorize your files, folders, notes, tasks, etc. (currently drowning amongst all the community-requested features but shall be released soon )

Wow, that is a really cool Idea. You should target ipad integration in my opinion. A touch screen input along with capability to manage folder in mac using your ipad (touch input is better suited for whiteboard like apps). That would be a great selling point. I would definitely be a customer with those features at least. Happy to connect on DM in case u want to discuss more.

So you mean to say boards that sync and show up on your iPad, too?

devonthink has the deepest tagging i've found on mac, auto-tag rules on import, nested tags, and it handles files, pdfs, and images all in one place. been using it about 2 years and nothing else comes close for a setup like this

For images, I was very impressed with VisionTagger. You can give it a try on 100 of your files to see if it works for you. I have no connection to the company, but plan to pick up the software some time.

I would separate tag types before picking an app. Most tag systems get messy because status, topic, client, project, and archive tags all end up in the same flat soup. What has worked best for me: keep normal folders for broad ownership: client, year, area, archive use tags for cross-cutting states: Needs review, Waiting, Tax, Reference, To process keep the first tag set tiny, maybe 5-10 tags build Smart Folders around tags you actually check weekly review unused tags every month and delete aggressively do not tag everything just because you can For documents, I would start with Finder tags plus HoudahSpot or Smart Folders before moving into DEVONthink/EagleFiler. DEVONthink is powerful, but it becomes the container. Finder tags keep the files useful outside the app too.

I was setting up my new Mac today and completely forgot Finder has native tags built in. Funny thing is, I had them disabled because I never used them… which made me realize I probably never gave tagging a real chance in the first place 😅 Out of curiosity, what’s your actual use case for tags today? I’m not trying to become a tagging demigod, just looking for some general structure you guys use, not apps rn!

Little irrelevant to OP’s post, any tips on setting up a new macbook? Btw I have no backup r system settings to be pulled from older machine(s) - just a new machine! Thanks in advance 😊

I’d look at HoudahSpot if you want to make Finder tags actually useful, DEVONthink if you want the full nuclear document system, Eagle for images/assets, and EagleFiler as the simpler “dump everything and tag it” option.

A word of caution. I have about 400 system tags. [1] And I set up a hotkey for the Tags menu which I can trigger on my mouse for very easy tagging of files. But I’m not considering nuking most of my tags and starting over from scratch, and keeping things very simple (20 or fewer tags). The biggest problem is that it’s hard to do searches with multiple Tags. Ultimately, I’ve found Tags are best for two things: associating groups of files that you wouldn’t necessary put in the same folder (or closely associated groups of folders). A work project might pull in photos, a few documents or files, and maybe some scripts, which are scattered far and wide across my user folder. Or 2) prioritizing workflow, e.g. !Pending, !Urgent, !Done. But for fine grained retrieval of vast numbers of files? Tags may not be the best option. Explained: [1] Of the 400 tags, there are maybe 40-50 major categories, and then tags which are essentially subcategories, e.g. Financial FinancialBills FinancialBillsHealth FinancialReceipts You get the idea. It’s a good hierarchy and makes adding tags easy, as typing a few letters produce a dropdown list of matching tags to select from. But I have far too many files tagged, and it has become problematic. For better or worse, a large chunk of my tagged files are memes, infographics, politics, quotes, etc. Things that I wanted to be able to quickly reference with high specificity, if and when needed. There are several problems. First, I rarely need to recall these files, and when I do, searching via tags is difficult on MacOS. You can’t easily combine 2 tags in a search like Bills and 2026. I have Houdaspot, but that’s overkill; far too many options and steps to do a simple search. It’s slow. In most cases, a simple search by name in Raycast (or a Finder window) will find the file I’m looking for. I even went so far as to create a script that I can run in Raycast that lets me type multiple Tag names and then produces a folder containing copies of the search results. That’s also a pain.

How do you realistically tag in your normal Mac use?

This comment was deleted at the source.

This comment was deleted at the source.

Isn't demigod from Greek mythology?