I wanted to delete the blue tag from a number of documents… if I delete the “blue” tag in the navigator sidebar, it puts all the files under it in the trash… but those files still exist… I was afraid to empty trash for fear I’d delete the files, but nowhere did i see that the trashed files were replicants. I couldn’t undo the action so i dragged the tag back to the tags under “global”… what is going on here? what would have happened if I had emptied trash? what’s the best way to delete a tag from multiple files? from what I read a script is needed? does throwing the tag to the trash throw away the actual files?
Were the files replicated before trashing? Items can be both tagged and replicated. However, the next release will improve this and use a strike through style for trashed items which will be completely removed from the database by emptying the trash. E.g. this is not the case if other instances/replicants still exist outside the trash.
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i see. thx. good to know, but I thought there would be an indication that they are replicants… I didn’t see anything different, or maybe I’m confused… but is that the proper way then to delete a tag from multiple files, just delete the tag group? can you multiselect a bunch of files and delete a tag in the same way you can add one?
If you delete a tag group, it will remove the Tag from all the files.
If you select multiple files, you could use Tools > Batch Process > Remove Tags…
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When you apply a tag to an item, a replicant of that item is created in the Tags section for the current database.
When I apply an ordinary tag to an item, I don’t see any replicant being created.
This only happens when I apply a group tag rather than an ordinary tag.
Shouldn’t this paragraph be in the “Groups Tags” section instead?
Please create a new thread instead of hijacking a three year old one.
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You are misunderstanding what is happening, so no it shouldn’t be in the Group Tags section.
When you tag an item, the tag group now contains a replicant of the item. This is easily seen if you open the tag.
Hi, @BLUEFROG .
Perhaps there is confusion here because of the terminology.
When I use DEVONthink’s replicant creation feature (right-click → Replicate To…), the Instances drop-down box in the item inspector shows the number of replicants, and I can navigate between them.
Also, an item which has been replicated turns red and italic because I have enabled “Mark duplicates and replicants in color” in the Settings.
Tagging an item with multiple ordinary tags doesn’t make any of that happen.
Certainly, an item with multiple ordinary tags appears listed under each of those tags, but it’s not a replicant. It’s just the way tag-based navigation works.
I can only see replicants being created when we add new groups tags - hence my comment about that paragraph in the documentation.
In other words, it seems that the term “replicant” is being used with two distinct meanings.
Is my understanding correct?
A tagged item is still considered to have a replicant in the tag. This has been the nomenclature for many, many years and why it’s documented as such.
Can I suggest you mention the strikethrough behavior in the next version of the documentation? I just noticed that behavior for the first time (I don’t need to delete groups/tags often), assumed it was to distinguish between total deletion and other forms of removal, but didn’t see a mention of it in the documentation (v3.9.7).
It’s a very welcome and clear cue and I just wish I could have confirmed it in the first place I looked. Thank you.