Bitten by Tags - once again - HowTo remedy and understand?

[ipanini]

I’ve been bitten, struck by what I call the tag virus in the past.. multiple times..
(posted about this on the forum before..)
And I’ve (successfully) battled them before..
But anno 2026, they seem to be back?

Let me explain:
I’ve learnt that undesired tags usually stem from RSS feeds somehow. I’ve disabled DEVONthink and Finder tag syncing on all my macs.
Today I reboot my mac, start DEVONthink (3.9.17) and was greeted with a log item:
25/02/2026, 18:46:04: 2022_new The database contains a huge number of tags. Due to the enabled Spotlight index the exported Finder tags might slow down the system.

Either disable the Spotlight index or use the hidden preference “DisableFinderTags” to prevent this.

As I was a bit surprised, and also because I have been free from this problem for a very long time, I set out to check on the status of DEVONthink’s hidden preference DisableFinderTags.
This is what terminal reports:
erwin@mini-3 ~ % defaults read com.devon-technologies.think3 DisableFinderTags

2026-02-25 18:43:00.123 defaults[1559:32864]

The domain/default pair of (com.devon-technologies.think3, DisableFinderTags) does not exist

erwin@mini-3 ~ % defaults write com.devon-technologies.think3 DisableFinderTags Off

erwin@mini-3 ~ % defaults read com.devon-technologies.think3 DisableFinderTags

Off
erwin@mini-3 ~ %

It also seems to me that the Help section on DisableFinderTags has either changed or that I do not understand what it means:
DisableFinderTags: DEVONthink no longer imports or exports Finder tags.

The way I interprete this is that DEVONthink no longer “syncs” Finder tags. Am I wrong here?

More:
I also checked DEVONthink preferences > RSS > Convert categories and hashtags to tags => disabled.

I then did some further digging, and it seems that I have a nytimes.com RSS feed, and that (at least on 27 sep 2025) these tags are synced or imported in to DEVONthink.

So I’m quite confused about what’s happening, and what and if I’m misunderstanding the DisableFindertags hidden preference?

As always, thanks for helping out!

[BLUEFROG]

Note: Version 3 of is in maintenance and will be retired from development and support at some point. Version 4 is the active focus of development. We highly encourage you to upgrade sooner rather than later, if your Mac supports at least macOS Ventura 13.5.

Also related to this, DEVONthink 4 has a non-hidden option in the Files > Tags settings to toggle them…

[ipanini]

Thanks for advising;
Since I’m using multiple DEVONthink licenses I have kept off of upgrading due to cost saving reasons. I was already playing with the idea to upgrade at least one of my licenses, so that will probably be the way I’ll go.

Are there, or will there be any special events where upgrade pricing will be more favourable?

Also:
While I’m investigating now, it appears that, again, most tags have crept in through RSS. On the surface it seems tagged items date from 2025-ish.

Is there an “easy” or scriptable way to delete all tags within existing an RSS group?
I guess that would help..

Thanks for helping out!

[BLUEFROG]

I can’t speak to any sales or promotions as that’s not in my wheelhouse.

1. Select all the feed articles you want to affect.
2. Choose Tools > Batch Process.
3. Add a Remove All Tags action and apply it.

[ipanini]

Thanks a ton!
I was not aware of the Tools > Batch process..

Very nice find & learning!
I only wish macOS Finder would have a similar capability..

[chrillek]

@ipanini

I only wish macOS Finder would have a similar capability..

Which capability? You can search for tags in Finder, then select all found items and remove the tags.