In this article, I will show you how to tag files in Windows 11/10 and use it to make file search efficient. Windows 11/10 has a powerful search built into the system. You can search your files by typing their names in Windows 11/10 Search. Moreover, you can also apply filters to your searches in File Explorer if you want to search for the files with a particular extension, like mp3, mp4, png, etc.
One of the most underrated, but efficient ways to search files easily is using TAGS. It is a feature in Windows available for a very long time, but not much used. In this post, I am going to talk about how you can use Tags to find files that are important to you quickly.
What are Tags in Windows?
These are metadata that can be associated with files and are part of Properties. Windows Search indexes Properties, which allows users to search for these tags.
Why should you use Tags? When different types of files fall into multiple categories and projects and belong to multiple persons, tags make sense. You can keep them organized into different folders, but when you put tags on them, you see them in one window.
How to TAG files in Windows 11/10
You can tag files in Windows 11/10 by opening their properties. Let’s see how to do that.
- Open File Explorer and select the file to which you want to add a tag.
- Right-click on the selected file and open its Properties. Alternatively, you can press the Alt + Enter keys to open the properties window of the selected file.
- Switch to the Details tab and look for the Tags field.
- Select the empty place right beside it, and it will convert to the text box.
- Here you can input one or multiple tags. In case you want to add multiple tags, add a semicolon between each of them.Once done, hit enter and click on the OK button to save the changes.
After adding the tag(s) to your files, you can view the added tag(s) in File Explorer. For this, activate the Details pane. In Windows 11, you can easily activate the Details pane. Open File Explorer, click on the View menu on the ribbon and select the Details pane option. After this, the Details pane will appear on the right side in File Explorer automatically when you select a file. You can see the tags there.
Do note that you cannot add tags to every file format. For example, if you want to add tags to images, the option is only available for images in JPG or JPEG file formats.
Add tags to Microsoft Office documents
If you use Microsoft Office, you can add tags to Office documents, like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. You can do so in two different ways:
- By following the usual method as described earlier in this article.
- By opening the Office document.
Do note that the first method does not work for empty Office documents or files. To add tags to Office documents, say Word, follow the steps provided below:
- Open Microsoft Word document.
- Go to File > Info.
- Click on the text box next to the Tags option under the Properties section there.
You will be able to easily add Tags here.
How to add Tags to Multiple Files
You can also add tags to multiple files in Windows 11/10. This is useful if you want to add the same tags to multiple files. Go through the following instructions:
- Using the CTRL key, select multiple files within the same directory.
- Right-click on the selected files and select Properties.
- Go to the Details tab.
- Add your tags just like above, and then click OK.
- All those tags will be applied to all the selected files.
This method works only if the file format of the selected files is allowed to add tags. If the file format of any one of the selected files is not allowed to add tags, you will not see the Tgs options in the properties window.
How to Search for Files using Tags
That was the tough part, but searching is much easier. Windows 11/10 Indexing works almost instantly. The files to which you add tags remain available to appear in the search results when you enter the particular tag.
To search your files using tags, open File Explorer and click on the File Explorer search bar (available on the top right side). Type the following command and hit Enter.
tag: <name of the tag>
For example, if you want to search for the files with the tag TWC, type the following in the File Explorer search bar and hit Enter.
tag: TWC
While the search result is pretty quick, if you have tons of files with similar tags, you should make use of the Filter option. Here you can narrow down your search results by type.
You can also use a free File Tagging Software for Windows 11/10 to better manage your files.
Read: How to add Tags to Images in OneDrive
Which File Formats are supported for Tags?
The sad thing about Windows tags is they are limited to very few formats like images, Office documents and so on. So when you right-click on PDF files or a text file, you will not see an option to add tags. But you can use File Meta Association Manager to enable Tags for unsupported files.
TIP: You can rename and tag music files quickly with TagScanner.
