Tagging advice for DEVONThink

Posted by Paul Korm
Dec 14, 2017 at 03:37 PM

DEVONthink uses an unusually metaphor for tags—“tags are groups”—that a lot of users have a hard time getting comfortable with.

I think it’s best to set a database to “exclude groups from tagging” and to look at building a hierarchy of tags inside the database’s Tags group. Also, never import, create, or index a document inside a tag. Keep documents in “normal” groups, and so when you tag them you only have replicants in the Tags hierarchy. When you start putting original documents in the Tags hierarchy you get a mess—not that that’s what you’re doing, but it’s worth mentioning.

You’re not going to achieve in DEVONthink what you achieve in TheBrain. They are completely different information concepts.

Personally, I rather enjoy organizing concepts in TheBrain in a very freeform manner, and if a concept is related to a document in DEVONthink then I insert a DEVONthink-link in the brain to link back to the document.

It’s a lot simpler to use TheBrain for exploring notes and concepts and forget about tagging. Just my opinion.