replicate tags to various databases

Hi,

I’m trying to digg a little deeper into DTPO and I realize this ‘can’ be a quite slippery subject.
I’ve found some posts that I know I do not fully understand at the moment - that’s why I post this question.

Suppose you want to work with multiple databases.
If I understand correctly each db will have its own set of tags?
How can I copy / transfer and even keep tags in sync between various databases? Is there a way to achieve this? (My main goal is to keep tags consistent across db’s, and not having to recreate them each time)

And last but not least, previously I seem to have lost ‘tags’ when moving an item to another database.
Is there a way to keep tags as ‘sticky’ metadata to an item? Or move / copy them over to the other database?

If there’s any 'must read first ’ info, please point me to it.

It is not possible to automatically synchronize a group structure between databases – and since tags are groups, this limitation applies to tags as well.

You have a few options:

  1. Manually manage the problem. Create a tag in each database where you want that tag. Not much fun, but not a huge burden usually.
  2. Select several tags in one database and use “Duplicate” to copy them to another. Big downside here is that any document that has been tagged with those tags is also copied – making the post-copy cleanup a burden and much more work than (1), above.
  3. Maintain the tag structure outside DEVONthink. You could make a folder on the desktop or somewhere and make subfolders for each of the “tags” you’ll be using. Then, import those folders into the “Tags” parent group and you’ll have new tags with those names. This soon all becomes more work than is worthwhile, and that takes me (personally) back to option (1).
  4. Keep your tag hierarchy in the Global Inbox (or some other database) and do all your tagging there before moving to another database. Moved or copied documents retain the tags.

Never happens over here – maybe there was operator error? If you have enabled groups-as-tags (an “ordinary” group can be used as tags) then those are not “real” tags and are not retained when a document is copied or moved to another database.

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This would be my recommendation as well. I’m convinced that this is the best way to ensure that tag names are unique and consistent across all databases.

Assigning tags to groups works the same way. Once documents are moved from the groups, the tags are not retained.