Tags vs folders for notes: use this rule and stop agonising
Use folders for the stable, main grouping, such as project or area, because a note can live in only one place. Use tags sparingly for cross-cutting labels, such as a status. Keep fewer than a handful of tags, and let search do the rest. If you hesitate when saving, skip both.
You are not bad at organising. You are being asked to make a decision with no clear right answer, and every app offers both. Here is a rule that settles it for most personal systems.
The rule
Folders say where something lives. Tags say what is true about it. Use a folder for the one stable home of a note (a project or area of your life). Use a tag only when a note needs a second label that cuts across folders, such as waiting or to-read. If a label could be a folder, make it a folder.
What each does well
| Folders | Tags | |
|---|---|---|
| A note can be in | One place | Many places |
| Best for | Stable grouping: project, area, client | Temporary or cross-cutting status |
| Browsing | Easy: open a folder, see ten or fifteen notes | Needs a search or filter |
| Upkeep | Low if the structure is shallow | Grows silently: near-duplicate tags appear |
| Risk | Deep nesting; "where did I put it?" | Forgetting exact tag names |
The case against tags
Tiago Forte lays out the criticism sharply. Tags demand a few choices for every note, frequently before the note has proved useful. They also depend on recalling exact tag names, while human memory is better at recognising than recalling. Because a new tag takes only a few keystrokes, similar and overly specific tags pile up. And fast search, he argues, makes precise tagging largely unnecessary. His proposed alternative is to stop designing tag schemes, capture ideas, review them and let search find things.
That is an opinion, not a law. Tags are still useful as a lightweight status flag. The takeaway is a cost: every tag you invent is a recall task for your future self.
The case for a few folders
PARA, Forte's folder-style structure, sorts by actionability into Projects, Areas, Resources and Archives. The advantage is that it is boringly predictable: material for a live project is in one folder. Even if you never adopt PARA fully, the lesson is to group by what the note is for, not by topic labels. See Zettelkasten vs PARA for where this approach sits.
For idea notes, the opposite applies. Andy Matuschak's evergreen notes prefer associative links to rigid categories, because ideas belong to many neighbourhoods at once. A note on "friction in habits" will connect to design, psychology and your own work, and no single folder can say that.
A practical setup in ten minutes
- Create at most five folders: your two or three live projects, one for ongoing life areas, one for reference, one Archive.
- Choose at most three tags: for instance
to-read,waitingandidea. - Write them on a sticky note next to your screen for the first month.
- Anything that does not fit goes in an inbox, not a new tag.
- At the weekly review, move inbox items to a folder or delete them. See the weekly review routine.
A worked example: twenty notes
Imagine twenty notes: four about your kitchen renovation, three about a work launch, five loose ideas, four articles to read, two receipts, two travel plans. With folders only, you create Renovation, Launch, Reference and Travel, and the five ideas wait in the inbox. That is five folders and a clear home for sixteen notes. Now add exactly one tag, to-read, for the four articles, because that status cuts across Renovation and Launch. You are done. A second tag appears only when a search fails twice. Compare that with a typical tag-first setup: reno, renovation, kitchen, launch, work, work-launch, idea, ideas, read, reading. Ten tags for twenty notes, three near-duplicates, and you must now remember which you used.
When to skip both
If you capture many small things fast, the filing decision is itself the cost. Skip folders and tags at capture time. Let one inbox take everything, then sort once a week. Search covers the gap between capture and sorting. This is the heart of capture first, organize later.
Apple Notes and similar apps
Apple's iPhone guide lists folders, tags and Smart Folders as separate Notes features; we could verify only the contents page, not how each behaves. The general advice applies in any app: start with the folder structure above, add a tag only when a real search fails twice, and keep your system portable by not relying on one app's special features.
Signs you have over-organised
- You have more tags than folders.
- You rename tags more than you write notes.
- Two tags mean almost the same thing.
- You hesitate before saving a quick thought.
The fix is to merge, delete and shrink. Then go back to the smallest system.
Questions people ask
Are tags better than folders?
Neither is better in general. A folder gives a note one clear home, which is easy to browse. A tag lets a note carry several labels at once, which helps for cross-cutting ideas but tends to multiply into near-duplicates. Most people do best with folders first and a few tags.
How many tags should I have?
As few as you can remember without looking: roughly five to ten at most for a personal system. This is a rule of thumb, not a researched limit. If you cannot recall your tags, you have too many.
Can I organise notes without folders or tags?
Yes. Capture into one inbox, delete what you do not need, and rely on search plus a weekly review. Forte argues that fast search makes elaborate tagging largely unnecessary. This works best when you write enough context in each note to find it later.
What are Smart Folders?
Apple Notes lists Smart Folders as a feature alongside folders and tags in its iPhone user guide. We could only read the guide's contents page, so check Apple's documentation for exactly how they behave.
Sources
- Tiago Forte (Forte Labs): Why the tagging concept in Evernote and everywhere else sucks Argues tagging causes decision fatigue, strains recall and encourages over-organising, and that fast search reduces the need. One author's argument; published 2015, updated 2022.
- Forte Labs: The PARA Method A folder-style structure by actionability: Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives.
- Andy Matuschak: Evergreen notes Prefers associative links over rigid category hierarchies for idea notes.
- Apple Support: iPhone User Guide, Notes Only the table of contents was readable: it lists folders, tags and Smart Folders as separate Notes features. Details not verified.
Made by EASYTECH, who also make Nom.
