Feature: Support Tags across Operating System

[antoniocaruso]

What feature or improvement do you think would benefit Files?

Dear Authors,

If File implements a system to tag file across file systems (with a mechanism that is also compatible with major Cloud Providers: Google Drive, One Drive, Dropbox) it would be the first file explorer to do it.
Something that really surprises me in 2025.

Requirements

• This proposal support user specified tag for each file or folder.
• The tags need to be supported on major operating systems (macOS, windows, linux).
• The tags need to be compatible with native tags systems in both os.
  • extended attribute on linux and macOS
  • windows tag for the file type that support it.
• Use external file to support sync across cloud storage providers.

When a user tag a file with a user defined keyword 'mytag', it is stored in the file extended attribute / tag support of the native os, if possible (windows have several limitations but ntfs support some way to store extended info on each file), if the file is moved between os/filesystems using 'Files', then try to preserve the information by detecting the file system type. So for example, if a pendrive is formatted with ntfs, use the information in the file to preserve tags, and if Files is used in another computer with a different FileSystem (for example macOS) and moved to a local folder, convert the tag info from 'ntfs' metadata to extended attribute (xattr - macOS) tags in order to being able to see the same tags in Files and in Finder (and use the local search feature of the Os for tag based search).

If files are moved in OneDrive or other way to sync them, add an hidden file to each folder (when the user use Files), to preserve this information, and when the user browse the folder (for example moving from Windows to MacOs) alter the file to preserve the tags bidirectionally.

It is a large request that affect the behavior of Files in a complex way. The requirements need to be carefully checked and discussed.
But the result will be a UNIQUE incredible usefull feature..

Files Version

2.0.36 (preview)

Windows Version

windows 11

Comments

No response

[Josh65-2201]

Thanks for the feedback, we're tracking this in the below linked issue. You can check there or click subscribe in the right sidebar for updates. Other programs would have to add support for parsing ADS files or the database when implemented.

[Josh65-2201]

2.0.36 (preview)

You are also on a very old version of Files, please update https://files.community/download

[antoniocaruso]

I read the other proposal, and it is not a duplicate of this one.

1. My proposal ask to support DIFFERENT Operating System natively, in particular tags between MacOs Finder supported User Tags stored in extended file system attributes (_kMDItemUserTags).
2. Support tags across Cloud Syncs (oneDrive, or Google Drive)

This two requisites are different with respect the idea of supporting TagSpaces, and with different implementation paths.

I would ask the developers to keep this open, in order to consider maybe in the future this two different requirements, I understand that there will be some overlap, but the other ticket do not seems to properly capture what I would like to get (I tag files on Macos, and use at University another computer with windows 11, with file synced with OneDrive, unfortunately Onedrive do not preserve the xattr attributes, clearly because in the ntfs file systems they are not supported, but I would really like to use Files to see them in MacOs -> ask Files to 'export tags to cloud as a preference settings and get them back in windows using it' this is my first use case, but of course I would have them as much as possible usable with other apps (so basically trying to get support natively), example: if I tag a file with Files on Windows in a oneDrive sync folder, and I read it back in macOS, I will see the tag in Files AND in Finder).

[Josh65-2201]

Support DIFFERENT Operating System natively

Files is a Windows only program and there are many implementations of tagging in program (MacOS Finder included), using a database another program could convert it but native support isn't likely possible as the data structure and file system is different.

Support tags across Cloud Syncs

The isn't a way of supporting this other than using a database file. that can be also be synced using most cloud providers.

[yaira2]

Pretty much every program with tags has their own implementation. We're happy for other programs to use our implementation, but for us to support all the different existing formats is out of scope.