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XeFM reads and writes the tags your system already keeps, so a tag added in XeFM shows up in Finder (or Dolphin, or the S3 console), and tags added there show up in XeFM. There is no separate XeFM tag list to keep in sync.
Choose Go → Add to Favorites… (add_favorite), the same command that adds
a favorite. After the favorite rows, the
dialog lists tag rows. They act on the selected items, or on the item under the
cursor when nothing is selected:
Favorite: This directory: projects
Favorite: Under the cursor: notes.txt
Tag: ✓ Work
Tag: Urgent · red
Tag: Edit tags… (notes.txt)
Work, Urgent. Edit it and press Enter:
Running it and pressing Enter still adds the current directory to your
favorites, since that row stays first. In AFX style add_favorite is on B;
keys depend on your keymap preset — see
Keymap Presets.
Each tagged file shows up to three dots after its name, in the tag’s color, or gray for a tag without a color. Finder’s list shows only the colored ones, and a tag without a color appears in Get Info. XeFM shows those too, since it has no column for tag names. The dots are read in the background as rows come into view, so a slow network folder never holds up the list.
Files on S3 and over SSH don’t show dots: each lookup there is a separate network request. Their tags still work through Add to Favorites… and Search Tags.
View → Search Tags… lists your tags. Pick Work, or type a tag name that
is not in the list, and the pane shows every file tagged Work in the current
directory and below, as a list you can work on like any other. Press Backspace
to go back. On macOS, Spotlight answers this instantly. Elsewhere, or when
Spotlight finds nothing, XeFM searches the folders, and you can press Esc to
stop.
The action is find_by_tag. It has no key in any keymap preset; bind one in
KEY_BINDINGS, or run it from the command palette.
To take a tag off the list, highlight it and press the remove key (Shift-Delete). That only drops it from XeFM’s list. Files keep the tag.
| Where the files are | Tags used | Colors |
|---|---|---|
| macOS | Finder tags; Spotlight finds them too | yes, Finder’s seven |
| Linux | user.xdg.tags, as in KDE’s Dolphin |
no |
| Windows | an NTFS stream xefm.tags on the file (see below) |
kept |
| S3 | object tags: each tag is a key with an empty value | no |
| SSH | the remote system’s own tags: Linux user.xdg.tags, macOS Finder tags |
as the remote |
| inside archives | not supported | — |
A new tag named after a Finder color (“Red”, “Blue”, …) gets that color, as it does in Finder. A tag that already has a color elsewhere keeps it.
Windows has no system-wide file tags. Explorer’s “Tags” are stored inside certain file types only, so XeFM keeps tags in a hidden stream on the file itself. They follow the file when it is renamed or moved on an NTFS drive. Other programs don’t see them. They are lost when a file is copied to a FAT or exFAT drive, a cloud folder or an archive, or by a tool that copies only the file’s contents. XeFM’s own copies keep them.
Linux keeps tags in extended attributes, which ext4, btrfs and XFS support. FAT, exFAT and many network shares do not, and XeFM says so if you try to tag a file there. GNOME’s Files app does not show these tags.
SSH uses the remote system’s tools: getfattr/setfattr on Linux (from
the attr package) and xattr on macOS. If they are missing, XeFM names the
package to install.
S3 tags are limited to 10 per object, a limit that includes tags other
tools have set. Tags that have a value (owner=ops) belong to someone else;
XeFM leaves them as they are.
When XeFM copies or moves a file, the copy gets the original’s tags. This also works across storage, for example from your Mac to an SSH host or from Linux to S3, when both sides keep tags. A file that loses its tags on the way is still copied, with a note in the log.