Clicky

Working With the Tag Cloud

The tag cloud is a new addition in HoudahSpot 6.0. The tag cloud helps you incrementally refine your search to include only the most relevant files.

In previous blog posts, we have looked a how to assign file tags in HoudahSpot and the different ways you can find and filter files by tags. Let’s see how the tag cloud fits in and helps you find files faster.

Finder tags are a useful way to categorize your files. They are color-coded labels that you can assign to files. You can use tags to flag certain files. For example, you may want to flag your favorite photos. You can also use tags to organize files. What makes tags particularly useful is that you can assign multiple tags to a file. A single file can be organized into different categories. Tag a file with “Acme Corp”, “Painted Tunnel Project”, “Invoice”, and “Past Due”. You can find the file when listing all correspondence with “Acme Corp”. You will find the same file when searching for “Past Due” and “Invoice”.

The true power of HoudahSpot lies in the fact that it helps you narrow down a search to the point where the list of results has only relevant files and is easy to manage. File information and previews then make it easy to quickly pick the files you actually need.

The tag cloud is the latest addition to your HoudahSpot file searching toolbelt. You can use the tag cloud to quickly find tagged files. The tag cloud is also a very powerful way to incrementally refine your search when you are looking for files.

Acme Corp file tag Continue reading Working With the Tag Cloud

Video Tour of HoudahSpot 6.0

Finding files on your Mac can be a difficult and sometimes a frustrating task because of their sheer number — we all have so many!

HoudahSpot is an application that allows you to do refined searches to get just the files you are looking for and includes several useful presets right out of the box.

Todd Olthoff of ScreenCastsOnline revisits HoudahSpot and shows you all that is new in version 6.0.

Don McAllister of ScreenCastsOnline has covered HoudahSpot in the past so this screencast from Todd focuses on the updates that version 6 brings to the search party.

Below is a short preview. Watch the full show for free with a 7-day trial ScreenCastsOnline subscription. Continue reading Video Tour of HoudahSpot 6.0

Summer: Time to Travel Reminisce

Summer is here. Summer holidays are just around the corner. This is the time of year when many of us usually plan to travel and explore the world. Not so this year.

Explore. Reminisce. Show

This year we can reminisce about past travels and adventures. This summer we can dig into our well-organized photo collections. Photos organized by location now allow us to virtually jump around the globe and through time. We can explore photos in Google Earth to feel teleported to places we had the luck to visit. With photos pinned to precise map locations, we can retrace our steps in Google Maps. Nothing refreshes the memory like photos combined with the aerial views that reveal how the individual pictures connect.

Photos on Google Maps
Photos on Google Maps: Visit to Taj Mahal

Continue reading Summer: Time to Travel Reminisce

Use HoudahSpot to Search for Tagged Files

In previous posts, we saw how to organize files using folders and tags and looked at other uses of tags and labels.

Let’s move on to the most important step: finding your files. HoudahSpot can, of course, search for files by tags or by a combination of tags.

Favorite Tags

The most obvious way to search for tagged files uses the sidebar of a HoudahSpot search window. Select View > Show Sidebar from the menu to reveal the sidebar.

Click a tag to find files with that tag.

Click the All Tagged Files item in the sidebar to find files that have at least one tag.

Continue reading Use HoudahSpot to Search for Tagged Files

Other Uses for macOS File Tags

We have seen that file tags can be used to build or complement a filing system.

File tags can also be used to temporarily mark files. Since macOS has the handy ability to assign colors to file tags, such tags can be used to visually identify files. Both Finder and HoudahSpot flag the tagged files with colors of their tags.

This is particularly useful when shifting files around, merging folders, exporting photos to files, etc.

Screenshot: File tags in Finder used to mark files in a merged folder
Merged Folder: Files from 3 Different Sources

Continue reading Other Uses for macOS File Tags

Use Tags to Organize and Find Files

What are File Tags?

File tags are keywords you assign to files. They allow you to organize and find files.

Example of tagged file: a paid invoice
Example of tagged file: a paid invoice

Organize Files: Folders or Tags?

File tags allow you to organize files when a simple folder structure won’t do. Better yet: file tags can improve your existing filing strategy and make files easier to find. Continue reading Use Tags to Organize and Find Files

Save HoudahSpot Searches as Finder Smart Folders

In Mac OS X’s Finder, you can save searches as “Smart Folders”. These give you quick access to all your files that meet certain criteria. For example, all Microsoft Word files modified this month. All JPG photos taken with a specific camera. Or all e-mails you’ve received from certain senders within the last seven days.

Because Mac OS X Smart Folders are actually saved searches, they differ from regular folders: they don’t actually hold anything – they only list files stored elsewhere. The content of Smart Folder is not static but dynamic. It is updated continuously as new files come to meet the smart folder’s search criteria. This means that its content changes every time files on your Mac are added, changed, or removed.

With HoudahSpot (4.1 or later), you can easily set up a search and export it as a Finder Smart Folder.

Continue reading Save HoudahSpot Searches as Finder Smart Folders