Sync tags between DTOP and DTTG?

Is there a way to sync my tags folder from DTOP (with 4700 tags) with the tags in DSTGo?

I want tags to autocomplete and not replicate when I enter new data in DTTGo, and to sync back to my main DTOP database.

My device isn’t big enough for all the files in the DTOP database, but can I share their tags?

4700 is a VERY large number of Tags! :open_mouth: Are you sure this is necessary? If so, I’d love to hear about your methodology!

As I added items to my database I tagged them with relevant categories. With 1200 items I ended up with a lot of tags (4000+).

The main downside I’m aware of is that DTOP doesn’t have a “search for tags” option in the main window’s search field.

I don’t know how I should have done this better. Entering multiple tags seemed like a much quicker way of categorizing items than dragging aliases of each one into multiple manually created folders.

Now I fear I’ve been doing it wrong. Not the first time.

For instance, Tags for a recent bibliography item:
academic
anthology
book
helena simonett
humour
jokes
richard march

I don’t know how to connect all the items with those categories, so I used tags.

Except for the searching, it seemed to work. I don’t know what it’s done for efficiency of the database structure under the hood.

Tagging is a highly personal and subjective thing, in my opinion. You can find different views on what’s the “right” or “wrong” way to handle them.

Some will claim Tags should always be a flat space - each Tag isolated on its own in a list. This is how DEVONthink handles Tags, by default. I’m in favor of this approach.

Others claim a nested (hierarchical / taxonomic) structure is best because of the benefit of Tag inheritance. For example, you could have a structure of…
Author

American

Steinbeck

Tagging something “Steinbeck” would automatically get the “Author” and “American” Tags too. (And yes, this can lead to problems when people try and remove a Tag, like “American” here.)

It can also lead to Tag duplications that can cause problems. For example, say I add a new hierarchy of…

Cuisine

American

If I Tag something “American” should it get the “Author” Tag or the “Cuisine” Tag?? Actually, DEVONthink will choose the most recent occurrence of the Tag. Here I added one more Tag hierarchy…

Citizens

American
… then Tagged a document “American”

So defining the top level Tag in a hierarchy, or pulling out redundant Tags is necessary to make the system work as expected.
PS: There is no shame in having a smaller hierarchy and having redundant Tags outside it. In fact, it’s much smarter to handle it this way, in my estimation.

Remember, this is just a computer. A very dumb and VERY literal machine. It doesn’t see the contexts we see. We say, “Hey! It’s a book, not a restaurant!! So obviously it should apply the ‘Cuisine’ Tag!!!” The computer says, “What’s a book?” :mrgreen:

I hope this helps you think about the subject some.

My (unusual?) use of many tags works with the flat plan. I make relationships between items by adding tags to both. So the “rock” bands can be “country” music too by adding that tag, but not automatically.

But that’s how I ended up with thousands of tags. I want a way to quickly put items in those overlapping categories.

I’ve never been sure how my tagging reliance effects DTOP’s search algorithms. It seems to find things pretty well, though i really miss being able to search easily by tags. For me that would be a small but significant leap forward.

I’m still trying to figure if there’s a way to sync my list of tags to DTTGo so it will autocorrect to ease tagging of new items on my mobile devices?

I may have done this wrong already, I tried to drag the tags folder from my database to the tags folder in my synced Global Inbox. I fear it’s moved all the tagged files, which is not what I hoped to accomplish. Hmm.

Is there a proper way to share a list of tags between devices?

Why?
Note: You can select Tags and choose Data > Group Items (or press Option-Command-G) to group them.

You are likely not accessing the Tags group directly (ie. browsing the Tags), are you? If you say you are browsing them for search purposes…

  1. You can create Smart Groups to search Tags.
  2. Tools > Search > Advanced allows you to specify Tags as search criteria
  3. You can use View > as Tags, though with 4700+ Tags, this may not be as efficient.

It doesn’t. Tags are not currently used for the AI’s Classification or See Also, nor does it affect your searches.

It doesn’t on a drag and drop. It adds the Tag but duplicates the Tag group as a normal Group containing the document. Still not a good idea though.

Not out of the box, no - at least not in the way you’re describing it. Please start a Support Ticket for some extra info. Thanks!