Is there a workaround? How can I fix this?
These files are on SMB shares to Windows servers with a NTFS file system. Is there a better way to connect to windows shares? Please guide as I am new to the Mac world. Thanks.
MacOS – Finder in Mavericks will not tag files on network drives
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In a nutshell, how would one access this feature in Finder – not Spotlight (Command+Space) – but the adding of tags themselves?
From Finder, highlight a file and hit Cmd-I (or right click and select Get Info) to bring up the File Info Dialog for the file. In this dialog, the Spotlight Comments field is where you add tag data. Just add text to this field to "tag" the file.
Here's a good article on how to become a meta-data wizard in OS X:
https://gigaom.com/2007/02/01/using-metadata-effectively-in-os-x/
If was tagging that screen capture, I might use the following in the comments box:
customer-name presentation product-name
So that I could find that screen shot by the customer, or by the fact that it's being used in a presentation, or by the name of the product I'm showing them.
Where are these tags stored? Do they go in .DS_Store (I tend to delete those!) or elsewhere in the filesystem?
Yes, they're stored in the .DS_Store files you see in each folder. These files are read by Finder. The information is also stored in Extended Attributes (EAs) on the files themselves. Spotlight will prefer to read the data from EAs. EAs are a feature of the HFS+ filesystem, so remote filesystems might not necessarily have EAs available on files. In these cases, .DS_Store files are the fallback. Spotlight would also have a tag <-> file mapping section in its database but that's only accessible to Spotlight.
Does this tagging mechanism work on removable drives? What are the requirements?
Generally: yes. You can add tags to files and folders on removable drives and remote shares. Unless you've turned off .DS_Store creation on remote shares, OS X will just add these files and keep the meta-data there for you.
Does this tagging mechanism work over a network share? I have some Windows SMB network shares at home that I frequently store files on. Would it work on those or is another configuration required?
Yes, see above. If you didn't want OS X to do this, run:
defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true
And then restart Finder.
Aside from Spotlight, are there any command-line tools for searching through or accessing the tag data for files?
Lots!
Here's a list of 7 file-tagging applications for OS X: http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/utilities-roundups/7-file-tagging-applications-for-os-x/
I personally love and use LaunchBar which is like Spotlight on steroids.
- Open Terminal.
- Execute this command:
defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true - Either restart the computer or log out and back in to the user account.
Reference: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1629
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Best Answer
I'm also having this problem. I've seen a few users comment on it on different forums and Apple's Support. No one has offered a real answer, other than this seems to be a problem with Apple's implementation of SMB or the way the Finder interacts and reads those Volumes (or the way attribute files are saved/stored/read on them).
The format of the servers volume doesn't really matter and should be transparent to the client. All Finder can see is a SMB share, whether that share is on an ext3 filesystem or a NTFS one is quite irrelevant.
I've tested connecting to the same volume with AFP, SMB (which in Mavericks now uses SMB2 by default) and CIFS (forcing Finder to use the SMB v1 protocol). As far as I know, tags info are stored in .DS_Store files for each folder.
Connecting with CIFS or SMB, tag support is buggy. Tags sometimes appear for a few seconds and then disappear. In addition to the .DS_Store file, a ._FILE_NAME file is created for each file. Getting the properties of the file sometimes shows the tag.
Connecting with AFP tags work as expected. Just a .DS_Store file is created. But no tag info is available if tag was assigned while mounted as SMB.
Is a pity, because SMB2 is faster than AFP in my tests, but sacrificing tags for it is too bad.