Boolean Search with Tags

[Wave 7]

Does boolean search work with tags? For example, tag:work OR tag:school. I'm trying to decide if upgrading to professional is worth it. Thanks!

[PinkElephant 8,076]

What already works is 

any: tag:work tag:school

any: is the operator that works equal to OR

tag:MyTag is the operator that designates a search term „MyTag“ as a tag

Note there must be a space behind „any:“, but no space behind „tag:“ to make it work.

When correctly entered into the search field, it will produce all notes that either are tagged with work, or school, or both (Boolean non-exclusive-OR). Search terms like this one can be saved to perform the same searches over and again.

To use the advanced search options you just need to learn a little syntax - it even works with a Free account. You only need full Boolean search (Professional or Teams plans) if you want to build more complex searches.

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040282613-Search-overview

 

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208313828-How-to-use-Evernote-s-advanced-search-syntax

[gazumped 11,652]

1 hour ago, Wave said:

I'm trying to decide if upgrading to professional is worth it.

If Boolean search is the only thing attracting you,  then I wouldn't bother.  Unless you're going in for complicated conditional scenarios you can do most things with standard search as @PinkElephant has shown.

[Wave 7]

1 hour ago, PinkElephant said:

any: is the operator that works equal to OR

Unfortunately, my query is more complicated, like "(tag:this AND tag:that) OR tag:other". Would that work if I upgrade to professional?

[gazumped 11,652]

See my previous comment.  Boolean searches help to find more complex options,  but you could still use the standard search terms to do what you need.  It might take two searches,  rather than one (depending on your exact needs) but it's pretty comprehensive.  If you prefer to upgrade,  then knock yourself out...

[PinkElephant 8,076]

2 hours ago, Wave said:

Unfortunately, my query is more complicated, like "(tag:this AND tag:that) OR tag:other". Would that work if I upgrade to professional?

This is the type of search the new full boolean search is made for.

The current search syntax is basically an interpreter - reading the search string left to right, making sense out of it. This restricts the complexity of the search string.

[Wave 7]

15 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

This is the type of search the new full boolean search is made for.

Thanks - I had to confirm because the documentation only shows boolean with search terms. I don't want to pay double if boolean search doesn't work with tags.

[Wave 7]

17 hours ago, gazumped said:

It might take two searches,  rather than one (depending on your exact needs) but it's pretty comprehensive.  If you prefer to upgrade,  then knock yourself out...

Thanks for the help! That won't work for me because I want to make saved searches to retrieve notes by tags, and the queries can't be expressed without boolean operators. I've never seen Evernote show boolean searches with tags, so I wanted to confirm before upgrading. I don't mind paying more because I support the software, but I don't want to pay double the price for nothing either, since I don't find any other professional features useful.

[Mike P 2,625]

1 hour ago, Wave said:

Thanks for the help! That won't work for me because I want to make saved searches to retrieve notes by tags, and the queries can't be expressed without boolean operators. I've never seen Evernote show boolean searches with tags, so I wanted to confirm before upgrading. I don't mind paying more because I support the software, but I don't want to pay double the price for nothing either, since I don't find any other professional features useful.

Not surprisingly there is very little experience of Boolean search within the community because there are not that many professional/teams members (yet?). It would really take somebody who has access to the feature to try it out and report here. I would expect it to work but there are still things in V10 that I would also expect to work which don't! Another approach might be to ask the specific question of support via a support ticket. That way you've got something ot go back to them with if it doesn't work as you would expect.

[Wave 7]

2 hours ago, Mike P said:

Another approach might be to ask the specific question of support via a support ticket.

Thanks! I followed your suggestion. They said boolean search does not work on tags, so I made a general feature request on this forum.

[Scott T. 662]

On 8/10/2021 at 1:34 PM, Wave said:

Thanks! I followed your suggestion. They said boolean search does not work on tags, so I made a general feature request on this forum.

Where did you get this information? Boolean does indeed support tags. For example, I just ran this myself:

(tag:Bob AND tag:"credit card") OR (tag:backlog)

I had multiple notes tagged "Bob", but only one had "credit card". I separately have one note tagged "backlog". So the search above returned two notes.

[Scott T. 662]

Also, we have somebody working on a detailed help article for boolean search with examples. It should be ready soon.

[Roke 1]

Did docs on this ever get produced? I am trying to do (tag:reference OR tag:personal) and it only returns the last part (tags of personal). 

[Roke 1]

Apologies, it is working. I believe I had a syntax error (used ‘tags’ instead of ‘tag’)