MacOS – How many combinations of tags are there for a file

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With the advent of Mavericks, files don't have only labels, they have tags. You can still use it just like labels (and have the classical 'work', 'home', 'urgent', 'to file', … tags), but it is more powerful than that.

The difference with tags is that you can have multiple tags for one file (while there was one or none label). My question is two-fold:

  • How many combinations are there?
  • Is there a better way to organize tags than the categories:

    • Combination to produce many labels: 'red – blue = work, projectA' ?
    • A hierarchical way?
    • Find relevant, relatively independent axis:

      'blue = related to work',
      'red = to treat urgently',
      'violet = general interest',
      'green = recycle'?

Best Answer

There are infinite combinations since you can add your own custom tags, therefore you can have as many tags as you wish and therefore as many tag combinations as you wish.

Organising your files with tags is down to personal preference, but personally I use custom tags for projects and custom-named tags with colour for important/completed/etc.

My current main tag list is as follows:

I usually combine these with the project- or context-specific tag if it is a single file or package, or use the project/context tag on the folder and these general tags on the files themselves.