XYplorer Beta Club

I have looked at Help and searched the forum here and I am still not sure if labels are functionally any different from tags. It seems that using labels are basically tagging with colors.

Am I missing something? If this is the case how are people using labels in the real world if anything other than a more visual cue than tags? Who actually configures their tabs to show a column for labels if it is just a text description of the color?

I am not being critical here. Rather I am looking for use-cases for this feature that I seem to be missing.

Labels (color) is one of my absolutely essential features of XY. It is not just a text description of the color. You can set it to actually show a little color swatch in the column instead, like so:


I use to it label files with various 'statuses' and it gives a quick visual cue. And you can use them in filtering (just like tags, I suppose) with a more visual aspect.

You can also set it to color the entire row (instead of the little icon), but I find that unnecessary.

edit: to set it to this mode, Settings → Tags → Coloring Option → Symbol

arbalest wrote:I have looked at Help and searched the forum here and I am still not sure if labels are functionally any different from tags. It seems that using labels are basically tagging with colors.

Am I missing something?

From my POV, you're spot on.

For me, a label is a color "filter" which is freely assignable and searchable. So whenever I want to add a color marker (e. g. important, to read, cursor etc.) to a file/folder spontaneously, I use the color label.

Wit XY (or the file system in general) I don't use much tags. This is something I setup in dedicated Applications like Lightroom for images or Cubase for my samlple libraries, otherwiese I would have duplicated maintenance effort.

/e: updated explanation

for me difference goes like this: Labels for marking some simple current tasks(like "already sorted this", "ready for upload", "delete on next backup") for easy visual clue, and Tags are for long-term things describing something moved to storage to mark it for later easier search.

Thanks all.

In summary the real-word use is commonly: a)tags tend to be about the content of file while b)labels tend to be about status of the file. That makes perfect sense.