How can I get a tags drop-down list when tagging a note?

[War Eagle 37]

I am using the EN Business (now I guess it's called Premium?) desktop client for Mac. When I try to tag a note, I would like to be able to simply click in the tagging field and have a drop-down menu of ALL my existing tags appear. In the Windows client, I believe there is something called "Assign Tags Dialog" which does this. It's brought up by hitting Control+Alt+T, but that is only for Windows. is there something like that for Mac? 

 

It absolutely confounds me when tagging notes, because I literally have NO IDEA what my tag options are without seeing a list. A blank tagging field does me no good at all. I'm not Rainman, so I don't remember all the tags I created in the past year.

 

The only option I appear to have is to type one letter and then it will show me all the tags that start with that letter. So. Not. Helpful. I can't type 26 letters one at a time, just to find the tag I want. 

 

This seems like a no-brainer feature that should be included. Unless of course it's here and I'm just missing it, which I hope is the case. 

 

Thanks!
 

[gazumped 11,713]

Hi.  Try Cmd+Alt+T for the pop-up menu.  IMHO If you're using so many tags you forget the options,  you're doing it wrong.  See here for a couple of suggestions (at the bottom) - https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208314388

[War Eagle 37]

First, thank you for taking time to respond. I don't know how you get anything done in life with as much time and energy as you spend helping people on these boards. It's astonishing. :-) 

 

Second, I'm on a Mac, and there is no ALT key.

 

Finally, I really don't have that many tags (about 75) so I don't think I'm "doing it wrong" -- but in all honesty, how does one possibly remember every tag they've ever created AND whether it's personal or business tag?? In looking over my tags, I see that I have many that are unnecessary simply BECAUSE I can't access my tag list in the moment of tagging; so I end up creating a new tag that is too similar to something I already have made but don't realize it. This is the frustrating part about tags for me. I want to be able to have fewer tags and just choose from a list rather than having to type a letter into the field because heck I don't remember from one week to the next what tags I may have made just last week!

[jbenson2 2,147]

There are some other options to make it easy to remember. I have over 1,400 tags.

 

I use a 3 character prefix to my tags. I have been using a 2 level hierarchical tag system. It has served me very well over the past couple years. I have a lot of tags and this system helps me remember them for easy use.

Example of parent and child tags:

Company

Com-Amazon
Com-Charter
Com-Target

 

To find all children (all companies), I search for tag:Com-*

I have 5,539 notes that are tagged with a company name (tag:Com-*) due to receipts, statements, and invoices.

 

 

There are many tag variation possibilities to help narrow down the possible choices.

Parent / Child prefix examples:

Family / Fam-
Government / Gov-
Insurance / Ins-
Medical / Med-
Personal / Per-
Taxes / Tax-

 

It is my experience that Evernote really shines when using a combination of  tags, well-structured consistent titles, and Evernote's search grammar. It almost always finds the appropriate notes I am looking for. Occasional reviews of my tag list help keep it clean and structured.

[gazumped 11,713]

@War Eagle - You're welcome for the response.  As to the volume,  like any good manager I operate a lot on automatic,  have good systems behind me,  and cheat like a maniac wherever I can

 

(It also has a good result for me - like today,  I found a tip on Presentation Mode that will save me time in future!  Yay!!)

 

Anyway @jbenson2 has pretty much nailed it on tags - there are lots of different systems that follow the same pattern of prefixes and general categories,  plus what I call 'smart' titles.  All my notes are headed <date> <type> <source> <keywords> and most start out with no tags at all.  95%+ are in the one notebook,  and intitle:<keyword> and content searches find most of my notes pretty quickly.  (Most of my accounts with other companies have a customer number forinstance,  and a search for that turns up all my orders and invoices.  Add some date parameters,  and I can find my last month's invoices easily.)

 

Occasionally I'll tag because I have a project running and need to find some random paperwork related to the job in hand,  or if I search and just get too many hits I might pare down the results to the ones I need and tag them for a more easy find in future.  Saving searches also helps a lot with WIP and regular tasks.

 

If you're forgetting your tags,  I'd submit that's just not a good system.  You might be able to make things easier by organising hierarchies of tags - they're the only thing in Evernote that's (almost) unlimited - the max is 100,000 tags.  You can also stack them to unlimited depth.  I still have around 1,000 tags from my early days with Evernote,  but when I found I had <bank> <banks> <bankers> <banking> as part of that list I got fed up with tags and found a better way - for me.

 

The most important thing about Evernote is to find a working process with which you're comfortable,  and stick with it.  My memory is terrible and being a writer (day job) it's in my contract to come up with different words that mean the same thing - so trying to remember which of those words I last used as a tag was a challenge!  The title thing though is something I can apply consistently - when/ what/ who/ and er..details is pretty easy to come up with each time.

 

The second most important thing is:  if a system is not working for you,  don't be afraid to change it.  Your data won't disappear (viz my 1,000 tags ) and you can implement alternatives easily.

 

You do need to acquire some search skills,  but that's not hard.  https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208313828

 

(Oh yeah  important thing #3 is: Have Fun!  )

[CalS 5,284]

@War Eagle,

 

My advice is to be a minimalist with tags using more general classifications that you can easily remember.  For example, one use I have for EN is to store statements.  So I download or scan all of my statements from banks to utilities, some are stored in local notebooks some in synced notebooks.  I add a tag Statement and a tag for the name of the account to each of these notes.  That represents about 40 tags at  this point, but I know each one when the time comes.

 

My tagging is designed to enable me to get a note set of 25 or less when I do a tag/word search.  I have about 300 tags across 26k notes, the fewer the tags the easier the search in my view,, slightly  counter-intuitive I suppose.  I use the F10 option to hide the left panel since I don't need the visual cues it provides. 

 

But that's how I work and it's not for everyone.  I'm sure you will develop the method that works best for you.

[War Eagle 37]

THANK YOU all for such thoughtful and thorough responses!

@Gazumped, your detailed explanation just helped me make a big mental shift. I now have an idea of how tags can indeed be an important part of my information management structure. The way you explained it really made something click in my mind. Also, your description of your bank, banks, banking tags is precisely my issue. Well that, plus the fact that my tags have no hierarchy or consistent naming conventions. 

 

Which leads me to @jbenson! Thank YOU for the detailed explanation of your tagging naming conventions. UBER HELPFUL and definitely a concept I need to adopt immediately.  

 

@csihilling thank YOU for sharing the guidelines you use and the fact that you built your system around search goals. Beginning with the end in mind of pulling up 25 or fewer search results, then backing into the process of HOW to do that is very smart. Stephen Covey would be proud.  ;-) 

 

What I find so interesting is that in my daily work, I help my clients figure these kind of things out just the way the three of you have helped me. I even use many of the phrases and philosophies you have all shared! LOL... I guess being too close to a situation does hinder us from finding our own solutions. 

 

I'm off to completely blow up my tag structure and begin again. Luckily, I only have about 75 or 80 tags and many of them are duplicative, so I'm not worried.

Thanks again!  

[War Eagle 37]

Ummmm okay hold the unicorns and rainbows ticker tape parade... I'm now having tag issues that perhaps one of you giant brains can shed some light on. Every time I try to create a new tag it defaults to being a PERSONAL tag for some reason. I literally can't create a new business tag in the TAGS window. (this is when I have all my tags displayed alphabetically by hitting the TAGS button in the left pane)

 

I select "Business Tags" from the upper right drop-down. Then I hit "New Tag" and I type the new tag name. Then I hit ENTER. And POOF the tag name is gone and does NOT appear in the business tags list. However it appears in the PERSONAL tags list. I am at a loss. 

 

Ideas? Am I missing something obvious? 

 

I am on the desktop Mac version. 

 

Thank you! 

[gazumped 11,713]

Hmmn.  Not an EN Mac user I'm afraid,  so no insights here - anyone?

[CalS 5,284]

Sorry, PC user as well

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

I am using the EN Business (now I guess it's called Premium?) desktop client for Mac. When I try to tag a note, I would like to be able to simply click in the tagging field and have a drop-down menu of ALL my existing tags appear. In the Windows client, I believe there is something called "Assign Tags Dialog" which does this. It's brought up by hitting Control+Alt+T, but that is only for Windows. is there something like that for Mac? 

 

It absolutely confounds me when tagging notes, because I literally have NO IDEA what my tag options are without seeing a list. A blank tagging field does me no good at all. I'm not Rainman, so I don't remember all the tags I created in the past year.

 

The only option I appear to have is to type one letter and then it will show me all the tags that start with that letter. So. Not. Helpful. I can't type 26 letters one at a time, just to find the tag I want. 

 

This seems like a no-brainer feature that should be included. Unless of course it's here and I'm just missing it, which I hope is the case. 

 

Thanks!

 

 

Some suggestions:

1. When assigning tags to a Note, if you have no idea of what your existing tags are:
   1. Show the Sidebar (from the View menu)
   2. If you don't see your tag list, right-click on the "Tags" item and select "Show Tag List"
2. When creating Tags, stop and think what immediately comes to your mind to classify the Note
   1. The first category to pop into your mind is likely the most intuitive choice for you, and next time it will pop into your mind as well
3. Use a prefix in your Tag names that represent a broad category
   1. For example, I use "EN." as a prefix to all tags that relate to Evernote
      1. EN.Mac
      2. EN.Win
      3. EN.Search
      4. EN.Tags
      5. EN.NB
      6. etc
   2. Then when you need to assign a tag, or pick a tag filter, you can just type the prefix, like "en.", and Evernote will show a dropdown list of all tags that start with that prefix

Finally, See The Benefit of Using Tags  

[C6REW 416]

Hi War Eagle,

 

I am running the Business software, but mostly on Windows, which is all I can access until Monday. I do have it on an iMac and MBP, but rarely use it.

 

I have just added a Business tag in Windows and it worked fine.

 

However, new Notebooks pop into the Personal side of Evernote when I have tried to create them in Business. I will then manually move them into the Business side of my Evernote.

 

Not sure if that helps at this stage.

 

Sadly for us Business users, we still cannot Stack tags, which would make our life so much easier, particularly when you have a lot of them.

 

Regards

 

Chris