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

Thank you for that confirmation, allenbundy1.  I knew I couldn't be the only disappointed user.  Been using Apple since the 1980s and quality has gone down-hill dramatically in recent years.

And thank you for saying you use 10.6.8 instead of some idiotic animal or scenic view name.  Who ever thought those arbitrary catchphrases would designate any kind of sequence must've been drinking too much water from the Flint River.

I'm reposting this post from August 2015, again to help other users like me searching for an answer, as the thread has again been hijacked.

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A brief summary, current as of August 2015, in an attempt to help anyone new looking for a solution:

• labels are no longer present in either Mavericks or Yosemite
• there are two third-party Finder plugins available which reinstate or mimic the old label behaviour for both folders and files
• one is called XtraFinder
• the other is called TotalFinder
• one is free, the other is but $9
• both are very simple to set up
• I cannot post direct links as it is against the TOU of this forum
• there are also other more expensive and complex third party solutions out there such as PathFinder (which is a complete replacement for Finder rather than a plug-in)
• both XtraFinder and TotalFinder may no longer work come El Capitan

Upgraded to Yosemite this week (from Snow Leopard!), discovered labels replaced by tags, looked for a solution, spent hours wading through this ridiculously mammoth thread which seems mostly to consist of about four users in a three-year argument, figured this summary might help other users avoid having to do the same.

I'm glad there is such an intense discussion on this topic. Many valid points of view.

The one thing that most people are overlooking is that "Tags" are not just a changed version of the old “Labels” but rather a new “Tags” system . Unfortunately “Labels” were removed. Reason...? unknown.

I can understand the benefit of using “Tags” as opposed to “Labels”. The ability to tag an item with several tags, searching capabilities, etc. but removing “Labels” was what caused the storm of complaints.

If Apple had found a way to preserve the “Labels” feature and had simply added the “tags” feature this thread would not exist.

It seems to me that it shouldn't be too hard to do. They may have to add a discrete column for the “Tag” dots. (which they should have done in the first place)  that would allow the color of the “Labels” to not interfere with the Tags colors. Keep the background of the Tags column white.

ADD LABELS BACK TO OS X !!!!

And keep the TAGS feature as well. They are two distinctly different functions.

yes  YES

I REALLY  need coloured LABELS  returned to us  APPLE 

My process has suffered since they were dropped.

I am an artist and also a researcher (history) - and   labels created a world where I could move items around in creative ways quickly to find / re catalogue /  and test  ideas / groups  etc

The tags are  something completely different and the dots seem practically invisible to me - I avoid them

PLEASE RETURN LABELS TO US APPLE

As has been stated many times before in this thread, this is a USER-TO-USER forum, and Apple does not live here.

I would encourage you to file a bug or feature enhancement with Apple at either:

BugReporter

Anyone can get a free account at:

<https://developer.apple.com/register/index.action>

This is not going to change anytime soon.

Either use XtraFinder or Total Finder, both offer a workaround for continued use with OS X 10.11 El Capitán.

http://www.trankynam.com/xtrafinder/

http://totalfinder.binaryage.com/

thanks

--good suggestion

I posted to the mac feedback page

You can submit feedback to Apple until the cows come home. Won't change a thing. Apple is not going to back and do this for a version that is almost three years old (the age of this thread) and soon to be dropped for support. If they intended doing it, they would have already done that in a point update, years ago.

Just get XtraFinder, free, which will fix this for you in under five minutes.

okay thanks

Feedback and bug reports are a guaranteed dead end.  Been there, done that, repeat, repeat, repeat.

I relied "keywords," as it was called back in the good ol' functional days, to create a very useful but very extensive file system I've had to abandon due to Apple's fixing a problem that did not exist.  I get it that today's tags can be used the same way and I wish I could do that.  I've tried repeatedly.  My problem isn't so much "tags," as we're stuck with them today.  My problem is the inability to turn off the maddeningly slow and inaccurate auto-fill element of it all.

Asking again:  does anybody know how to turn off the auto-fill element of this retrograde upgrade?

Thanks!

Why change from labels to tags.  This is yet another case of making changes without consulting the users with the defence "We believe this is for the best".

If Apple had thought this out they would have provided both.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Give us back our labels!!

Hasn't changed in three OS X releases and many, MANY multiple updates.

Don't expect it to change any time soon.

See my last posting here for third party solution to bring back colored folders.

I am not going to keep repeating myself.

Good Luck!

Many of us have filled in a request to Apple because we want labels back.

But we've now reached El Cap with Sierra testing and still no sign of labels.

I don't think Apple is going to reinstate labels, even if only as an alternative choice to the coloured dots.

One of Apple's strengths used to be its ability to use good graphics which helped in identifying objects intuitively.  They also used the correct principles of graphic design.  These have also deteriorated significantly, even to the point where everything is grey on a white background, one of the no-nos of graphic design.  Maximum contrast should always be the case, eg, black on white or white on black, ie, strong colours against the weaker colours.  Having bought my new computer I opened MS Word and tried to find my hard disk in the side bar.  Eventually, I found that there is a hidden button to 'show' or 'hide'.  Ridiculous!

Also still trying to do away with need to 'Authenticate' files that I move from the desktop to my hard disk.  This is as a result of copying everything from my backup disk to the new hard disk.  How do I disable this?