Tags Review: Dead Simple File Tagging
- Great tag manager with favorites
- Supports many applications already and will only support more
- Renaming or deleting tags can take a while.
- A bit pricy
A form of organization that has been around for some time, but is just starting to become popular is tagging. In tagging, you assign one (or more) word descriptions to something. Each description is a tag. It can be helpful for organizing and easily searching for information. One application that has just been released that deals with tagging basically everything is Gravity Apps‘ Tags.
Tags takes the whole idea of tagging files and folders, and makes it dead simple. There are no fancy windows where you create hierarchies, or groups of tags. You just tag. This makes it much faster and easier to do it. You can also select multiple files (or anything it supports) and tag all of them. Just hit the shortcut you have assigned for Tags, and you get a notepad-like interface (notepad in that it looks like paper). If you don’t have anything selected (at least anything that it can tag), it will show you the tag search window. Tags basically takes all the ‘fun’ out of tagging.
Not only can you use Tags’ built-in search, but you can also use Apple’s Spotlight. You just search “Tag:(insert tag here)” to search for all files with the given tag. So, if you are a Spotlight lover, this is an excellent feature for you.
Tags also allows you to see all of the tags you have created in one window. In the sidebar of this window, you will see all of your tags. Once you click on a tag, you will see all files that have that tag. From there, you can view them in the Finder, or create a Smart Folder for the tag. One highly overlooked thing this window allows you to do is change the name of a tag. If you accidently tagged 100 files “macaper” instead of “macapper”, you can just find the “macaper” tag, and rename it to “macapper.” Then those 100 files will be merged with the other “macapper” ones. In this window, you can also mark tags as favorites. This means, that when you are searching or tagging, that tag will appear at the top of the list (when Tags tries to autocomplete).
The biggest thing about Tags is the fact that it uses a framework called OpenMeta. OpenMeta is a new framework for use in tagging applications and it allows for Spotlight searching. More and more applications are starting to, or are going to use it, which will provide compatibility between programs. If you tag an email with Tags, then an application like MailTags will be able to read those tags, and use them. Of course, this hasn’t happened yet, but once more developers start using OpenMeta, this will happen.
My only issue so far with Tags has been speed. It can take a couple seconds to delete or rename a tag, even when there are only 5 files with that tag. Also, sometimes the flip animation can lag, but if it does, you can easily turn it off in preferences.
Gravity Apps‘ Tags retails for $29, and you can download a free trial from their Web site. It supports many applications already, and will support even more in the future. $29 is a bit pricy for an application that just tags your files, but you may end up paying much more than $29 if you misplace certain files. However, if you aren’t too serious about tagging or organization, this may not be the app for you.
I agree… Simple and very easy to use!
The cost of the app makes my go elsewhere!
$29.00…. REALLY!?!
Question…. How did you get to that screen…..? titled tag manager?
When I open my tag manager I get a different window….
Thanks
If you click on the menubar icon, and go to Tag Manager, the window should appear.
Do you have version 1.1?
Duh!!!
I never updated it…..
It would be really nice if one day Mac OS X supported tags and incorporated it into the operating system so we did not have to use third party tools for tagging.
I am tagging files and folders using spotlight comments, Default Folder X to apply spotlight comments on file saving and Automator to apply multiple spotlight comments at once.
Tags seems to be ok but not being able to create tags at the time when you save a file is a deal-breaker. If I got to save a file, then tag it after it has been saved it will not work and I will end up with loads of files and folders that are untagged. For tagging to work you got to tagg it all and do so all the time and until Tags gives me a way to tag my document when I save it, this will never fly.
Let me tag when I save a file then this might be turn out to be really useful.
M
uh, it’s nice – but why on earth would i pay for this when the sharp minds behind yep leap and deep have released TAGIT for free???? it’s the same open metadata format too, so truly no technical difference and i find it even easier to use than this 29 dollar app….
see: http://www.ironicsoftware.com/tagit/ (on google openmeta, it’s really a nice app and you should consider a comparative review of some kind)
nice update on info dave!!
I have been trying this tags app out for several days….
I had NO idea about tagit…..
Looks like that is where I will “spend” my money
Well, for one, Tags has an amazing interface, with nice animations, and it also has the tag manager. But, if you are someone who only wants a few things, TagIt looks great.
Here is another free app bellow;
http://ironicsoftware.com/community/comments.php?DiscussionID=624&page=1#Item_0
Interesting how Photoshop is listed in both Fully Supported and Unsupported sections on supported applications page
@BabyJ didn’t notice that… weird. I don’t have Photoshop, but if someone wants to try it on Photoshop, and report back, maybe we can figure out what they mean.