How To Create Tags And Smart Folders In Notes (iOS 15)
Notes Tags and Smart Folders
The Notes apps gets a series of new features in iOS 15. You can better organize your ideas with Tags and Smart Folders. Productivity is also increased thanks to mentions and a new Activity view that allows users to easily collaborate and edit a note.
How To Organize Notes With Tags
Learn how to create, assign and use tags in Notes in iOS and iPadOS 15:
How To Create Tags In Notes
Using tags with Notes is very easy. All that you have to do is type the # symbol followed by the [tag name] anywhere in the content of the note.
Tip: Tap space to confirm the tag. A tag that is recognized by the Notes app is displayed with a yellow font. If its greyed out it means that it hasn’t been taken in account yet.
Fact: You can assign multiple tags to a note! Tags that have been used before might be suggested above the keyboard, as you type!
How To Edit Notes Tags
At the time of writing, iOS 15 doesn’t provide any option to change the name of a tag available in the Tag Browser.
Workaround: What you can to to modify a tag’s name is to edit it in the content of the note. However, if you’re using the tag in multiple notes you have to edit for every single note.
How To Delete Notes Tags
The same goes for erasing tags. You can’t simply delete a tag from the Tag Browser.
Workaround: What you can do to remove a tag from the Notes app is to manually delete it from the content of a note. If the label is used in multiple notes you have to delete it from every single one.
How To Browse Notes By Tags
To quickly access notes based on the tags you’ve assigned, you have to open the Notes app and scroll for the Tag Browser available at the bottom of the home screen.
Tap on a tag and a list with the appropriate notes is displayed.
A search field at the top of the screen allows you to quickly reach the tag that you’re looking for.
How To Create Notes Smart Folders
In iOS 15 you can create Smart Folders! These are able to list notes according to tags that you select.
- Open Notes and tap the New Folder option available in the bottom-left corner of the screen.
- Select if you want to create a local folder or you want to have it available on iCloud.
- Tap on New Smart Folder.
- Name the new folder and select the tags that you want to collect in this Smart Folder.
- Tap Done when ready.
Important: If you select more than one tag, a note has to contain all tags in order to be included in the folder. For example, if you select the tags iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 only notes that are labeled with both tags will show up.
Fact: You can also Create New Tag while creating the new Smart Folder, but this will automatically create an empty folder if you also select the newly created tag for the current folder.
How To Convert Folder To Smart Folder
In the iOS 15 Notes app you can also create a Smart Folder from a regular Folder. To do this proceed as follows:
- In Notes open the Folder that you want to convert.
- Tap the three-dots icon available in the top-right corner of the screen.
- Use the Convert to Smart Folder option.
- Tap Convert to confirm.
Important: A new tag, named as the original folder is automatically added to each noted contained in the folder.
Smart Folder Limitations
– To be a able to convert a folder to a Smart Folder it has to be in an updated iCloud account or the ‘On M’
– You can’t convert to a Smart Folder, a shared folder, or a folder that contains a subfolder, a locked note or a shared note.
– You can’t convert stock Notes folders like All iCloud, Notes, Quick Notes and Recently Deleted into Smart Folders.
– A folder converted to a Smart Folder can’t be reverted back to a regular Folder.
How To Recognize Smart Folders
Smart Folders in Notes are displayed along a gear icon, instead of the regular folder icon. This allows you to easily differentiate between the two folder types.
Are you using this stock iOS app for your daily notes or you prefer a third-party app? Use the comments section and share your feedback.
Related: How to quickly scan a document in Notes!
