# Smart group "Tag \<tagname\> is absent"--impossible?

**URL:** https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/smart-group-tag-tagname-is-absent-impossible/9853
**Category:** Tips
**Created:** [May 15, 2010, 3:05pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/smart-group-tag-tagname-is-absent-impossible/9853 "2010-05-15T15:05:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![alanterra](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@alanterra](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/alanterra)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2010, 3:05pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/smart-group-tag-tagname-is-absent-impossible/9853/1 "2010-05-15T15:05:49Z")

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I have searched these forums and the manual and the Take Control book, and I haven’t seen any definitive answer to this question. It is impossible to set up a smart group for the absence of a specific tag?

There is a comment in the manual that the Smart Group Editor is “under construction”. I hope that this feature is added.

More in a subsequent post.

Thx

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### Author: ![cgrunenberg](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/user_avatar/discourse.devontechnologies.com/cgrunenberg/32/7172_2.png) [@cgrunenberg](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/cgrunenberg)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2010, 8:40am UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/smart-group-tag-tagname-is-absent-impossible/9853/2 "2010-05-17T08:40:34Z")

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See [viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9956](http://www.devon-technologies.com/scripts/userforum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9956)

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### Author: ![alanterra](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@alanterra](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/alanterra)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/smart-group-tag-tagname-is-absent-impossible/9853/3 "2010-05-17T16:35:30Z")

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Thank you. FWIW, I have cited in these forums my satisfaction with how Sente deals with searching and nested searches. For a long time they got “tag XXX is missing” completely wrong, but they finally rewrote that code and it works very nicely. I have my frustrations with Sente, but this is one part that shines. When you have a free moment (I know, you are maintaining a large program with a large user population with an endless “to-do” list, so you never have a free moment!), it would be worth playing with Sente to see how it does tag searches.

I keep moving more and more of my life into DevonThink–it’s a little scary how seductive this program is ![:mrgreen:](https://devontech-discourse.s3.dualstack.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/uploads/original/1X/442e459c5ced45cb70e8a05e77e07cea6fee4928.gif "Mr. Green")

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### Author: ![Greg\_Jones](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/user_avatar/discourse.devontechnologies.com/greg_jones/32/7251_2.png) [@Greg\_Jones](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/Greg_Jones)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/smart-group-tag-tagname-is-absent-impossible/9853/4 "2010-05-17T16:51:32Z")

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I too would welcome additional functionality for tag searches and tag criteria in smart groups. If I had the options to select tags as pictures below, along with some other enhancements to smart groups that we will already see in 2.0.3, my workflow would be enhanced greatly.

![](http://grab.by/grabs/10bb0e42fd1328923bb79cf12e061094.png)

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### Author: ![korm](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e0b2c6/32.png) [@korm](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/korm)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2010, 8:43pm UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/smart-group-tag-tagname-is-absent-impossible/9853/5 "2010-05-17T20:43:33Z")

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+1 to Greg’s suggestion - I would use this frequently.

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### Author: ![cgrunenberg](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/user_avatar/discourse.devontechnologies.com/cgrunenberg/32/7172_2.png) [@cgrunenberg](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/cgrunenberg)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 8:13am UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/smart-group-tag-tagname-is-absent-impossible/9853/6 "2010-05-18T08:13:56Z")

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Both the Tags view and searching for tags will be definitely enhanced. V2.0.3 is basically a maintenance release but will include the first bunch of improvements, more will follow.

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### Author: ![system](https://devontech-discourse.s3.dualstack.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/uploads/original/2X/4/4e6ff70c96be2eb307a274d890bba8d71ba671b3.png) [@system](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2022, 11:08am UTC](https://discourse.devontechnologies.com/t/smart-group-tag-tagname-is-absent-impossible/9853/7 "2022-01-21T11:08:38Z")

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