New customer. Tags are greyed out in the sidebar and the tags are not available anywhere. Several deletes and resets. File>Database Properties> “Exclude Groups from Tagging” is checked.
A screenshot would be useful. And which version of DEVONthink and of macOS do you use?
Clarify what you mean by this?
DEVONthink 4 - Bought and downloaded yesterday on my Macbook Pro, Sequoia 15.7.3. Built initial groups and loaded pdfs to these groups. Setup tags using left sidebar. When trying to assign tags to a document the greyed out Tag list in the left side bar do not show up. When the pdf has the focus, the right side “info inspector” pane has the tagging toggle greyed out in the 6-toggle “Exclude from…” list. When a bring pdf’s over with preassigned color tags, the color tags show up as options in DT for tagging and are not greyed out.
The deletes and resets were completely wiping out my initial database with about 20 pdfs and setting up a new DT database with new groups but the tagging problem continued. I exhausted all AI recommendations on fixing.
If you’re referring to using AI on the web or in an AI app, like ChatGPT… don’t. You should come here or open a support ticket. You can also use the Help assistant in DEVONthink’s built-in Help viewer but I imagine you don’t have AI set up at this point.
The greyed out tags mean nothing more than they aren’t applied to any documents. They are not disabled.
You should be able to drag and drop a pdf on a tag (grey or not) on the left sidebar to assign that tag.
In the inspector, you set tags in the tag field (just above the “6-toggle list”).
Advice on AI help heeded. I was finally able to tag a document by typing my tag name at the bottom of the “document view” pane– a small unmarked sliver. Once I tagged my first document the greyed out tag changed to un-greyed in the right side pane. That said, every attempt I made to “Assign Existing Tags” through the drop down menu did not work. Now when I drill down the menu sequence to “Assign Existing Tags” to any document it goes nowhere (no response at all when choosing this menu item). Any advice on my user error attempts will be appreciated.
That is the Tags bar and one of many places you can enter tags.
There is no need to guess at the functions. I highly recommend you read the Getting Started > Tagging section of the built-in Help and manual.
And from the Menus > The Data Menu section…
- Assign Existing Tags: Using DEVONthink’s internal AI to examine tags on similar documents, the selected document will have matching tags applied.
PS: If you want to use AI, you’ll need to set it up in DEVONthink’s Settings > AI > Chat. Then you can use the Help assistant, like so (noting AI gave me a link to jump to the page shown)…
Do note, the suggestions are not exhaustive but do cover the most common manual methods. And while it mentions nested tags, that doesn’t mean we are advocating it without forethought. This is giving you a summary. To be better informed, you should dig a little deeper into the topic.
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Thanks for the help. I located the DEVONthink help and will now work outward from here. Thanks!
You’re welcome.
In case you’re not aware, most native macOS applications have a built-in help available from the Help menu 
Few are as extensive as DEVONthink’s, though—it’s pretty much the full documentation.
You can also download the manual as a separate PDF or ePub file from the link @BLUEFROG shared. As a new user, I would highly recommend that you download the PDF, import it to DEVONthink and add it to your favorites. That way it’s always quick to open from the sidebar.
The built-in Help is great, but I personally prefer the PDF. I find it easier to navigate, and since it’s a PDF you can highlight and take notes directly in the document.
You can also check Help > Tutorials for a different format. These are shorter slideshows that give a quick overview of a topic.