(Archived) How to sort tags by note count in Evernote for Windows Desktop

[Denko 1]

I spent a long time looking for a solution to this. I wasn't able to find one. Then I noticed that a feature of my Evernote Premium account is chat support. So I asked the question: How do I sort tags by note count in Evernote for Windows Desktop?

 

Here is an edited transcript of the chat.

 

Me: How do I sort tags by note count in Evernote for Windows Desktop?

 

That option is not on Evernote for Windows yet. On Evernote for Mac you can sort the tags by Note Count. Hopefully this option will be added to Evernote for Windows soon.

 

Me: OK, let me ask another question. How do I find tags that are used 0 times or only 1 time? I want to organize and clean up my tags and I don’t see how to do it without going through hundreds of unsorted tags manually.

 

If you click on "Tags" in the left side panel, you will see a list of all your tags in the middle panel. The note count (how many times the tags has been used) is shown between parenthesis in the tag list. You will have to look at your tags to find the ones that you wish. I am sorry this has to be done that way.

 

Me: It will take far more time than I have to spare. So it won't get done. My tags will remain a mess for the time being. Thanks for your help.

 

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

 

I spent a long time looking for a solution to this. I wasn't able to find one. Then I noticed that a feature of my Evernote Premium account is chat support. So I asked the question: How do I sort tags by note count in Evernote for Windows Desktop?

 

Here is an edited transcript of the chat.

 

Me: How do I sort tags by note count in Evernote for Windows Desktop?

 

That option is not on Evernote for Windows yet. On Evernote for Mac you can sort the tags by Note Count. Hopefully this option will be added to Evernote for Windows soon.

 

Me: OK, let me ask another question. How do I find tags that are used 0 times or only 1 time? I want to organize and clean up my tags and I don’t see how to do it without going through hundreds of unsorted tags manually.

 

If you click on "Tags" in the left side panel, you will see a list of all your tags in the middle panel. The note count (how many times the tags has been used) is shown between parenthesis in the tag list. You will have to look at your tags to find the ones that you wish. I am sorry this has to be done that way.

 

Me: It will take far more time than I have to spare. So it won't get done. My tags will remain a mess for the time being. Thanks for your help.

 

 

Not sure what you're looking for here.  It would appear your questions were answered & AFAIK, the answers are correct. 

[gazumped 11,661]

...and I'd be careful about killing any tags with 0 notes.  I have some stacks of tags where the parent is (correctly) shown as having 0 notes,  though the tags under it have lots of their own...  deleting the parent would have unfortunate results.

 

I do notice that 'select all' works on that middle window listing all the tags,  and if it were possible to copy and paste the list into Excel you could probably,  with a little manipulation - and subject to the above,  come up with a list of tags sorted by frequency of use.  Personally I'd prefer to sort my tags out in a mind-map so I could categorise them more coherently.  I know I have some overlaps - banks / bankers / banking;  and some typos - bankes - but maybe they should all just be under 'money' anyway...

 

I'm glad I'm a member of the "I always put as much information into the title as I can" brigade and don't use tags that much any more.

[Denko 1]

That's a sensational idea - copying into Excel, sorting, and then going back into Evernote to clean up the tags. It's how I do everything else (default to Excel), so I don't know why I didn't think of this. Thanks for pointing out the obvious - which wasn't so obvious to me.

[gazumped 11,661]

No problemo

[waisel 0]

gazumped's solution sounds great, but I can't figure out how to copy the tags. I see how to select all tags using the Note/Tag menu item, but can anyone tell me how to copy the tags after they have been selected? Selecting the tags just causes the checkboxes to get ticked; it doesn't select any text. Perhaps this is a Premium feature . . .?

[Denko 1]

Yes, I'm having the same problem. Can't copy the tags in order to paste them into Excel. Great idea, but I can't get those tags onto the clipboard.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Before Evernote changed their internal code, I used a wonderful 3rd-party program called BitQwik. Part of the original version included Tag Hunter. It let me do some awesome management of my Tags, including exporting to a spreadsheet. After exporting the tags, I could see which ones with the most number of notes and - more importantly - the ones with just a few number of notes.

 

edit: I have tons of tags that use government acronyms. All these acronym tags have the prefix "acro-".  The list has grown substantially since then, due the out-of-control regulatory environment promoted by the Obama nanny-state administration.

Here is a Tag Hunter screen grab of a portion of my acronyms from a couple years ago.

http://goo.gl/IvKwzB

[gazumped 11,661]

Oops - sorry there guys;  didn't carry my test through quite that far.  And yes,  you're right;  that page is impossible to copy,  although you can - confusingly - select the contents.

 

Engaging my lateral thinking brain,  it is possible to copy the tags listed in the 'list' view,  and they come up nicely separated by commas.  So:  alternate suggestion.  View 'All Notes' in list view;  sort the tags column until you have your tags at the top;  copy the tagged entries (with or without any other fields,  as you require) into a humungously long spreadsheet column;  engage in a little Excel-fu to split the multi-tagged items into columns,  and count the instances of individual tags.  Or get rid of duplicates and list out your tags in accessible form.  Or trees.  You could save your output back to Evernote and keep it up to date from there...

 

The world - or your tags at least - is your lobster.

[Denko 1]

Thanks, Gazumped. You're giving it the old college try, but I don't think this is easily solvable.

 

I can do what you're suggesting up to the "count tags" aspect of Excel-fu but then it becomes an issue of how to write a formula or parse and recombine the tags in such a way to write a counting formula that you can sort on. Because some notes have one tag, some have a single tag, and some have up to a half-dozen comma-separated tags, which are now in a single Excel column, 

 

It would be enjoyable to work on it for a while, since I like messing around in Excel as much as the next guy, but the solution is now getting bigger than the problem. I can live with a few hundred unassigned tags until Evernote decides that Windows users should get the same capabilities as Mac users. It doesn't seem like much to ask - sorting by number of tags - but I guess everyone feels that way about their particular issues.

 

Thanks again for your suggestions.

[gazumped 11,661]

No problem.  I had to exercise a little self control myself not to start spreadsheeting that one out.  I really don't care about tags any more - I'm a firm subscriber to the "comprehensive title" brigade - but it is a nice sorting problem,  and I like playing around in Excel too..  However I'll happily wait until the information is more easily available ...