Hi – I am trying to find a way to search for all my notes that have any of several tags, in several specified groups. Ie, I want to simultaneously search my groups called “Primary Sources” and “Secondary Sources”, to find all my notes that are tagged EITHER “1928-1945” or “1945-1949”. (Ie, all my bibilography items that cover the period 1928-1949 – although none are tagged with that date range, and my bibliography items are split between “primary” and “secondary” groups.) I know how to find notes in those two groups that have BOTH those tags, but not EITHER tag.
Help! I know this must be possible.
But those posts you sent me to seem to refer to Devonthink ToGo, and I’m using the desktop version of DT. I can’t believe I can’t find tagged items as I need to. Please tell me that isn’t true. I’ve been assuming I could!
But you posted your question in the DEVONthink To Go: Tips, Tricks, & Troubleshooting forum.
The following search query will find documents with tagA AND/OR tagB. In your case, it will find tagA OR tagB as I assume all your documents are tagged with one, and only one, date range tag.
Stupid of me – accidentally posted to the wrong forum. But far as I can tell, your suggestion only finds something in the name or content fields, not in the tags field. Meanwhile, I will repost my query to the right forum.
What I posted does indeed search for tags, and only tags.
Yes, I realized that the instant I pressed “send” on my reply. Very sorry.
The question now is, how do I indicate the two (or more) groups I want to search for those tags within!
I thought you already had a plan for searching multiple groups?
In any event, the following works here if you have your database set to enable tags for groups (set in File>Database Properties>YourDatabase, uncheck 'Exclude Groups From Tagging).
If you do not want to enable tags for groups, I expect you’ll need to set up two smart groups to accomplish this-one searching the Primary Sources group and the other searching the Secondary Sources group.
I did not reply in your new topic in the DEVONthink forum as I expect the admins would rather move this thread rather than have two cross-posted threads.
Wonderful! I’ve enabled tags for groups, and now I seem to be able to do what I need. Do you happen to know if DT keeps a record somehow of past searches, so one can go back in and modify them with new criteria – thus avoiding having to build a complex search from scratch each time one wants a modified version of it.?
Thanks for all your great help.
Assuming you are using the Global Search, you can save searches (click on the ‘+’ next to the search bar) which become smart groups that you can move, duplicate, edit, etc. You can also just create a smart group to begin with, which is what I did to create the screen shots posted above.