I hate the new tags in Mavericks, need coloured folders!!

I see that you have recommended XtraFinder and TotalFinder several times on this thread — I am grateful to their develops and agree they provided a good bandaid, until El Capitan (when Apple made it impossible for their plug-in to work and they had to create a SIP workaround).

Since you seem unconcerned about System Integrity Protection, I presume you disabled SIP and recommend that other Apple OS users do so as well?

I was still on Yosemite back then I think.

Personally I'm comfortable disabling SIP and have done so in order to be able to continue to use XtraFinder, as coloured labels are integral to my professional workflow. I'm techie enough to know what SIP does and to make a reasoned evaluation of the risks of disabling it.

However, I can't recommend that other users do so. So for a normal user if you still want coloured labels, I'm afraid from El Capitan onwards you're basically buggered.

Have no clue what you are referring to.

I was running OS X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion up until about 4-5 months, ago.

My iMac is now using/running OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks and I have XtraFinder installed.

If I recommended the use of XtraFinder/Total Finder it was because those users were still running OS X 10.9 Mavericks OR OS X 10.10 Yosemite.

Mea culpa - had an email notification of your reply and speed-misread it as a reply to me, not MichelPM. I posted about Xtrafinder and Totalfinder a few times a while back in an effort to get the thread back on track, as it had degenerated into a slanging match making it hard for users to wade through and find the info.

IMHO while yes all of us who use labels would love to see them back, however many of us there are it's clearly not going to happen. For SIP all I can safely recommend is a bit of googling to decide for yourself if you're comfortable disabling it or not. Not ideal but that's how it is now.

Thanks.

I am just going to add an endnote (gotta run). Just restating what I said a few moments ago:

This thread's persistence and the ongoing efforts of the third party developers at TotalFinder and XTraFinder demonstrate that there are significant numbers of Apple OS users who find Apple's decision and continued dismissal unacceptable. Further, colored labels are an aid to accessibility.

An earlier post illustrating that colored labels exist via Time Machine is sufficient proof that it would not be difficult for Apple to add colored labels back in as an option via Finder prefs. They should do so.

I don't really appreciate YOUR attitude, to be quite frank!

You are NOT a moderator OR police of these forums!

And I don't ever remember addressing any issues you might have been having.

So, I have no clue who you think you are here telling a volunteer Apple tech support person what to do to!

And who I decide or NOT decide to help in these forums is NOT for YOU to say or call me out on!

These are volunteer forums for which I have been a long time Apple support volunteer here for nearly 15 years!

No one here is perfect and nor am I

I am a user, just like you!

I do not work for Apple!

I help with advice and solutions to the best that my 20 plus years of Apple knowledge allows.

I am not here to be constantly verbally chatised and "slapped on the wrists by some group of random users that thinks my advice is questionable or not and for offering assistance whether that assistance will work or not for a particular users' needs or not!

I will continue to do as I will.

Good Luck to you in your endeavours and be well...stay we!l!

Exactly Melanie. I agree. Why can't Apple add colored labels back in as an option via Finder prefs.?

I too think that the colored dots are NOT as eye-catching as the way it used to be when the entire folder/file name was given a colored background.

Simply the human eye can't effectively look in TWO places at the SAME time. In newer operating systems the eye has to scan through the file/folder names but also then constantly scan back & forth over to the color of the dots alongside. In older OS the color was right there surrounding the names.

So I use Xtrafinder. (I also love it's option to "Automatically adjust width of columns" so I can see quickly longer file names).

I would rather apple just had more options in the finder in the first place, so I didn't need third-party software.

It is a shame that we are tending to find that Apple are changing things when there is no real need to do so. There's an old adage - 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'! I completely agree wity lclcv.

Tony T1 wrote:

It's been over 4 years since Apple removed Labels from the OS X (and the OS is not even OS X anymore, it's macOS)

I will venture to guess that Labels will never return to macOS.

And I'd venture to guess your absolutely correct.

Or rather, some people use Macs every day and and wonder if Apple fired their UX team shortly before the release of Lion, are resentful of Apple's confusingly bad decisions and are amused by the tone deaf Apple zealots defending these odd decisions.

And of course people who just need to complain and be reminded to send Apple proper feedback through appropriate channels.

Ahab the Eskimo wrote:

And of course people who just need to complain and be reminded to send Apple proper feedback through appropriate channels.

You would think they could have figured that out by reading the thread. Oh, wait. They don't do that. They just see the title and add a rant at the end.

mrwassociates wrote:

Just taken the advice and supplied feedback on the subject to Apple. I await the response with baited breath!

As long as you don't hold your breath. As was noted on the feedback page, while Apple reads all the feedback, they don't, in general, answer. Of course, if they add the feature back, that would be a positive answer.

mrwassociates wrote:

Just taken the advice and supplied feedback on the subject to Apple. I await the response with baited breath!

As Idris Seabright has pointed out,

Apple designers and engineers do not read these forums. Apple supplies these forums for users to work out their product issues with other users, but these community forums ARE monitored/moderated by Apple Staff assigned to these community forums, but I do not think any info is ever passed on to who/mever the cognizant parties are who would need to know if there are any mounting issues with a product or software.

The only way to get Apple to listen to you is to use their feedback portion of their website. Apple DOES read the feedback, but NO one from Apple will respond with any one-on-one personal replies to individual feedback.

The colored labels may or may not return in future Mac OS releases, but will NOT be coming back in OS X 10.9 Mavericks.

So, I wouldn't hold my breath on its return.

Apple is done with OS X 10.9 Mavericks. DONE!

Apple is going to be, shortly, 4 OS iterations past OS X 10.9.

If still using OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks, look at using XtraFinder OR Total Finder.

makey wrote:

You say that you can only offer workarounds, PLEASE tell me what the workarounds are and how to access them.

Many suggestions have been made in this thread. I suggest reading it from the beginning.