Keyboard shortcut for unique tag?

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Keyboard shortcut for unique tag?

I’ve already learned that there’s no way to create a keyboard shortcut to tag a file, so I’m asking a general question:

I have thousands of files that need to be deleted, and he only way to identify them is by looking at the file names in Finder. I could drag them to Trash on identification, but, well, see the problem? That’s a lot of mousing about.

I’m looking for some way, any way, to ‘mark’ these files in a way that Spotlight will be able to find them, and I can dispose of them in bulk. Tags is the obvious answer, but alas, as I have said, Tags aren’t a Menu item, so can’t be assigned a keyboard shortcut.

Anyone have an idea? Possibly some third party app, or? This would be under MacOS 11.

Thanks.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Sep 17, 2023 12:42 PM

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Answer 1

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,784 points

Sep 17, 2023 1:54 PM in response to Michael Spencer

In Finder Preferences : Advanced, have this configured:

Before the next part, have a current Time Machine backup so that if you over reach and remove files you didn't plan to remove you can restore them with /Applications/Time Machine.app.

Open a new Finder Window, and in that window search field, enter the following, where you replace X with your tagname. If your tag name has white-space, then use double-quotes around it.

tag:X

This will return all filenames that have that tag on them. Review them to ensure that they are in fact files you want to Trash. Then press cmd+A to select them, and then move them to the Trash. Empty the Trash and close the Finder Window.

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Answer 2

Sep 18, 2023 10:42 AM in response to VikingOSX

Thanks, Viking. But you are way ahead of me! Remember that I have many thousands of files to examine.

I’m ok with using Spotlight. I’m looking for some way to quickly ‘mark’ a file for later search by means of a keyboard shortcut. I’ve looked at Alfred, LaunchBar, FileBuddy, and Keyboard Maestro (which comes darn close).

My solution, so far, isn’t what I want; a shortcut to Finder/ Move To Trash is very, very quick. And, it’s not a bad solution, since I can double check by simply opening the Trash folder. Not the best solution, though.

By the way, and slightly tangent, my first efforts at this involved using third party duplicate finder software. There are several good ones; I found myself getting deeply confused over which file to keep, and which not, though. What would really help is something that held a given folder as the ‘Key’ folder, then look at two drives, automatically tagging or deleting any matching file. Alas that also doesn’t appear to exist.

Thanks.

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Keyboard shortcut for unique tag?

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