File tagging makes it easy to manage and find files and folders. Here are the best file tagging software for Windows to make life easy.
When dealing with many files and folders, especially nested folders, you can use tags to manage them better. Tagging files can make the whole file management and categorization tasks easy.
For Windows, there are a lot of excellent software to tag files and folders. To get you started, here are some of the best file tagging software for Windows.
Best File Tagging Software for Windows
Below are some best software to tag files in the Windows operating system. You will find the detailed explanation for each software down below. Click on the above links to go to the software info.
Windows File Explorer
Did you know that Windows file explorer has a built-in file tagging feature?
To tag files in File Explorer, right-click on the file and select Properties. Now, go to the Details tab. Add the tags of your choice in the Tags field. Click on the Ok button to save changes. As shown in the image below, I’ve added Windows Hero Wallpaper as the tag. To add multiple tags, separate them with the “;” character.
The best thing is that you can use the File Explorer’s search bar to find tagged files. All you have to do is use the tag name. To find a file with a tag, use the “tag:YourTagName” syntax in the file explorer search bar. Don’t forget to replace “YourTagName” with the actual tag name.
Though the built-in tagging feature is pretty good, there are a few limitations on which files you can tag. For example, you can only tag media files and documents. Also, file tagging works only in the NTFS file system.
So, as long as your file tagging need is simple, you can use the built-in file tagging feature in file explorer.
Price: Not Applicable.
Tabbles
Tabbles is feature-rich and one of the best file tagging software for Windows. With Tabbles, you can tag any file type. Developers designed Tabbles to be easy to use while giving proper tools to better tag and manage files and folders.
After tagging, Tabbles makes it easy to find tagged files. To automate repeated tagging, Tabbles also has an auto-tagging feature. It automatically tags files based on file types and folder structure when enabled. If needed, you can create powerful rules using regular expressions for auto-tagging.
Other features include but are not limited to the ability to combine and remove tags, tag priorities for workflow, tag hierarchies, etc.
Of all the features, I like that Tabbles preserves the tags even if you move to File Explorer. Most of all, the user interface is clean and easy to use.
If you are looking for a full-fledged file tagging software with many useful features, then Tabbles is for you.
Price: Tabbles is free to use for up to 5000 files and 15 auto-tagging rules. You can subscribe to one of their monthly or yearly plans to remove the limitations.
Download Tabbles.
RecentX
RecentX is yet another simple yet useful file tagging software for Windows. With RecentX, you can tag folders and files with just a few clicks. In fact, all you have to do is select the file or folder, click on the Tags option and enter the tags of your choice. After tagging the files and folders, you can search them as and when needed.
The best thing about RecentX is that it is much more than file tagging software. RecentX can search for files faster than windows, making it easy to navigate between files and folders.
RecentX can make your life a lot easier with its management and search functionality if you constantly deal with scattered files and folders or have deeply nested folders. Other features of RecentX include but are not limited to the built-in clipboard manager, the ability to search for browser history and bookmarks, etc.
Price: RecentX is premium software costing a one-time fee of $29.95.
Download RecentX.
Tag Explorer
Tag Explorer is a dedicated file tagging software available in the Microsoft store. Using Tag Explorer, you can tag any number of folders and files. Once tagged, you can find the tagged files using the built-in search functionality or by selecting checkboxes.
You can tag files with a few pre-defined tags depending on file types and usage. For instance, to manage movies, it has genre tags.
Most of all, since this is a Microsoft store app, the installation is clean, and you don’t have to worry about updates.
Price: The app is free with premium features requiring in-app purchases.
Download Tag Explorer.
FileTag
FileTag is an awesome-looking Microsoft store app to tag files in Windows. Using FileTag, you can create custom tags with their own color and assign them to the files and folders as needed.
Though the features are good, compared to other software in this list, using FileTag is not that intuitive. i.e., adding files and folders can be a drag. However, if you like a simple application that lets you color code tags, then FileTag is an excellent application. Add to that; the user interface is clean and modern too.
FileTag features include setting reminders, dark theme support, Windows Hello support to protect the application, semantic zoom, etc.
Price: The base version is free, but you are limited to one tag only. You need to purchase the pro version for unlimited tags. It costs $0.99.
Download FileTag.
Files
Files is a simple yet full-fledged File Explorer alternative for Windows 11. The Files application looks good with the latest Windows 11 design language and has almost all the essential features of File Explorer. Most of all, you can install Files directly from the Microsoft Store.
Recently, the Files developers added the ability to tag files as an experimental feature. So, you need to enable the tags feature in the File app. To do that, open the Files app and click on the “Settings” icon. Go to the “Experimental” tab and turn on the “Enable file tags” option.
After enabling tags, right-click on any file or folder and choose the tag color. Currently, the tags are pretty limited, and you can only choose between a few pre-defined tags. The tags feature will improve in the future, hopefully.
Price: The Files app is free.
Download Files.
Wrapping Up – How to Tag Files in Windows
If media and documents are your primary concern, then the built-in tagging feature in File Explorer is mostly good enough.
On the other hand, if you want a full-fledged file tagging software with all the bells and whistles, then Tabbles or RecentX is the way to go.
Looking for a Microsoft store app and don’t mind the lack of advanced features? Try Files, Tag Explorer, or FileTag.
That is all. I hope that helps.
If you know any other file tagging software for Windows, share it in the comments.
I am surprised that Windows Live Photo Gallery is not mentioned. Whereas I have not put it to use, I did poke around, and it seems to suffice in being able to assign multiple tags, to tag multiple images at one time, and to be able to search (I think) throughout the computer for files having a certain tag. One detractor is that it seems that windows has already set tags based on filename, most of which aren’t tags that I’d want to end up using. But the application is already there on the computer. I like the looks of “tabbles” but don’t know if it would put an overhead on PC functionality.
I never knew that. Thanks for letting me know. I will take a look at it.
We have just released a new app for Windows 10 that uses hierarchically-ordered tags, or tag trees, to help you organize your files! It combines the flexibility of tags with the logical structure of nested folders. The app is called Ritt and you can check it out at https://ritt.app
I need to mark my pdf collections within my folders in terms of importance, on a scale of 1 to 5. The ratings would be displayed in a separate column, within a File Explorer-like interface.
To explain: I am a writer. I do research. Some pdfs are useful, others not. I organise them by author, but I also want to categorise them and to sort them by usefulness rating, ie, by a rating that I assign. Usually I use a simple numerical rating which makes it easy to sort the files.
I believe Windows File Explorer can do this for most file types, but it can’t do it for pdfs.
I do not need cross-folder support, tabbed browsing, double displays.
Check out calibre for managing huge amounts of literature in any kind of shape. It’s an excellent choice!