Using Smart Folders In Mac Notes

Smart Folders are a great way to help you organize your notes in the Notes app. You can use Smart Folders with tags to create your own system to find notes.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at using Smart Folders in the Notes App. 
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Recently I've been getting a lot of questions about using Smart Folders in the Notes App. Now Apple likes to use the term Smart in front of things like Folders, Albums, Playlists, and so on. In all cases what it means is that you're not creating a real folder or album or playlist. You're, instead, doing a search but you're saving that search so you can easily go back to it later on. So, for instance, here in the Finder I can create a new Smart Folder. You can see this window here looks just like the search window. You can search for something in a file name, or in the contents. You can add criteria, like this, and then you can see the results of that search. But when you save it the Smart Folders is something to go back to again without having to do all that. You don't need to type the thing that you're searching for and set all the criteria. The search is updated in real time. So, for instance, if you have a Smart Folder that's looking for files with the word wombat in the title then right now you may look at it and find five files. But later on if you add more files you may go to that same Smart Folder and find that there are seven files because you've created two new ones. 
It's also important to realize that things aren't actually in the Smart Folder or Smart Album or Smart Playlist. They are still in their original location. So in the Finder it is still a file in that same folder it was in before. You're just seeing search results showing you these files even if they are in different places. The same thing, say, for Playlists in the Music App. The song is still just in your library in one place. But you could have that same song, say, in three different playlists. 
So you can use these Smart things in all sorts of different apps. So here in the Finder you can go and create a new Smart Folder, like I showed before. In the Contacts App you can go and create a Smart List and search for contact cards that meet a certain condition and then see those. It is not moving them into that Smart List. It is simply a way of searching without having to redefine what you're searching for each time. Here in Reminders you can create a new list and set it to a Smart List and have the Smart List contain items that meet certain conditions. The items are still in the list where they were created. You just have a different way of viewing the items outside of that list. 
In the Photos App you can go and create a Smart Album and then have photos in it and then be able to list your photos but in a different way. The photos are still there ones in the library but you can have a Smart Album where the Date Added is in the Last 30 Days, say, and just see your most recent photos that way. In the Music App you can create a new Smart Playlist and have it populated with songs that fit conditions. So, certain artists or genres, or how often you've played them. That kind of thing. In the Mail App you can go and create a new Smart Mailbox. It is just a different way to be able to see some of the messages that are still in their same locations in the original mailbox but you're just like searching that mailbox but instead of having to search each time you can just go back to the Smart Mailbox and it will search using the same conditions you set for that Smart Mailbox. 
So all these Smart objects have two things in common. One, is that you set a series of conditions that are the criteria for the search. Two is none of the things in them is actually in the Smart object. They are all still in their original locations. You're just looking at them as you would look at Search results. 
In the Notes App let's first start by looking at regular folders. I can create a new folder by going to File, New Folder. I'll just give it a name. I'll call it New Folder here. A folder is a place where you actually can store a note. So I'm going to go to All iCloud, which really isn't a folder. It's going to show me all of my Notes and they are stored in iCloud. I'm going to move this note here into New Folder. Now when I have All iCloud selected I still see all of the notes that are in iCloud. But each of these folders I've created only have specific notes in it. The actual note is actually in that folder. So here I've got this note that I've put in New Folder. If I were to move it into the Test folder it's no longer in New Folder. It is just in the Test folder. So, the folder is the actual location where the note is stored.
Every note is inside a folder. Just like a physical piece of paper would only be in one folder in a filing cabinet. All of these things you see here are folders. So each note is in one of these folders. All except this first one, All iCloud, which is kind of like a Smart Folder showing me in another way all of the notes no matter which folder they are in that are stored in iCloud. It's a little confusing, I know, and I wish Apple would just a different icon instead of a regular folder icon since this isn't a typical folder. 
Now let's create a Smart Folder. I'm going to go to File and New Smart Folder. Just like with those other Smart objects and other apps you can see it brings me up this list of Search conditions. Then you can see a checkbox here making it into a Smart Folder which is what you want. But actually if you uncheck that it goes to the New Folder dialogue which has Make Into Smart Folder. So you can switch between the Make a New Folder and Make a New Smart Folder dialogues with that checkbox. 
Now we're going to define some Search conditions. There is going to be a list here. Know that you can set it so Notes included in this Smart Folder either have to match All of the conditions, or Any of the conditions. So in other words And or Or. Let's stick with the default All right now. Now let's set this to Dated Edited to the Last 30 Days. That's all of the notes that we have recently edited. Let's change the name to Recents. Then I'm going to click Okay. Now we get this Smart Folder here that shows us all of the notes that have been edited in the last 30 days. There is only one there right now. 
Let's go to All iCloud here and go to this note. Let's edit it. Like that. Now this note fits that condition. So if we go back to the Recents Smart Folder it's going to show us the notes edited in the last 30 days. That should include two notes now and indeed it does. We can see them listed here. If we were to go back in and find another note, like this one, and just add a few blank lines there at the end and then go back to Recents we can see now that it shows 3 notes. So it is just like we searched for notes that have been edited in the last 30 days but we didn't have to do the search over and over again. We just go to the Smart Folder. It's always going to show us the most up-to-date list that matches those conditions. 
Also remember the notes aren't actually in Recents. Recents is showing you a list of notes that are elsewhere. If I go to the Notes Folder here I can see there's this particular note. If I go to that New Folder we created there's that note. So the notes are still stored in the same folders. The Smart Folder is just another way of viewing notes stored elsewhere.
So how you use this really depends on the search criteria you set. So let's go and create a new Smart Folder and take a careful look at what's here. The first one is Tags and here we can set Tags to All Selected, Any Selected, Any Tag, or Untagged Notes Only. So this would be a handy way to see all the notes with some tag in it or notes you haven't gotten around to adding any tags at all. So let's first go and actually use some tags. Let's say this note here is a note that I created in a meeting. I'm going to create a tag by using the Hash or Pound # symbol and I'm going to call this Meeting. I'm just going to make it my habit that I use this tag in any note that I've created during a meeting. So let's go to this one here, this is definitely a meeting note here. I can add a tag anywhere I want and you can see I can even autocomplete it like that. So now I've got two notes that have this tag Meeting in it. Now if I want to see all of my meeting notes no matter where I've stored them I can go and create a new Smart Folder and then say Tags, All Selected and then select Meeting and put it there. Let's go ahead and name this Meeting Notes. Okay. You can see Meeting Notes now shows me those two notes here. So next time I'm in a meeting I create a new note. I take some notes and then I remember to tag it as Meeting. Now when I go to my Meeting Notes you can see that note is added to the list. 
So you can continue with this. For instance, you can have different tags. Maybe Meeting, Morning Meeting, and maybe  Project Meeting. Then you could go in and Edit this. You can do that by clicking on the three dots button here, Control Click, right click or two-finger click on a trackpad, and then choose Edit Smart Folder. So I can have another tag here that is like Morning Meeting and add that and change it to Any Selected. So Any of these tags exist in a note that is added to this Meeting Notes Smart List. 
Or let's say I didn't want to see old meeting notes here. So what I can do is I can go to a note and let's add a tag called Archive. If I've tagged anything Archive I don't want it to appear in Meeting Notes. So let's go and Edit Smart Folder here and then Add Archive but I'm going to click right here and say Exclude Archive. You can see how it puts a line through it. So now when I click Okay notice there are only two notes here because that other note had both Meeting and Archive and Archive excluded it from the list. So you can get really creative like that. You can go further and you can say, well it's got to match all of the following filters so let's click the Plus button here and add something else, like Date Created is Within the Last 3 Months. So now you're only going to see things that are tagged with Meeting, that don't have the Archive Tag, and were created in the Last 3 Months. So Recent Meeting Notes, for instance. Or you can have Date Edited instead of Date Created. You can add Locked Notes and say Exclude Locked Notes from this. You can continue and add more. You could say Folders and Only Notes that Appear in certain folders. So you can see I can say Home and Things and say, okay, only things that are tagged with Meetings, that aren't tagged with Archive, that aren't Locked Notes but they have to be in the Home or Things Folders. Or you could actually exclude folders instead. 
So a ton of different ways to create Smart Folders. Also, and this is very important! It's easy to create them and Remove them. You just either click the three dots button or Control Click, right click, or two-finger click and you can delete the folder. It's not deleting anything because these are just Search results. If I delete this then you could see here those notes are still there. They haven't gone anywhere. It is just my Smart Folder isn't there so I don't have a convenient way to see them all together. But I could very easily go ahead and create a New Smart Folder and this is how you learn how to use Smart Folders. You try creating Smart Folders. You see what you can create that is useful. Create a bunch of different ones. Delete ones that don't work out. Over time Edit them and make them more useful to you. Create new Smart Folders. It's easy to create them. It's easy to Delete them. It's easy to Edit them. So you don't have to agonize over getting the perfect set of Smart Folders the first time or even worry about whether you're going to use them at all. You can create some Smart Folders and if you don't find you use them then you can ignore them or delete them later on. Or if you think that one might be more useful if you altered it a bit, make that change knowing you can change it again back to the way it was or make it follow another set of conditions. How you use Smart Folders is really up to you. A large number of people that use Notes will not use Smart Folders at all and that is perfectly okay. If you find just having a bunch of different notes is all you need that's great. If you find having a bunch of different folders where you put each note in its own folder works for you then do that. On the other hand if you think Smart Folders might be useful then give them a try. Some people may create one or two Smart Folders, like maybe Notes Created in the Last 30 Days and other people may create lots of Smart Folders to having lots of things like Tags in their Notes and have a Smart Folder be the way they organize and access them. It's really up to you. There's no wrong or right way to use Smart Folders in Notes. 
I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 8 Responses to “Using Smart Folders In Mac Notes”

Stephan Kiefer

1 year ago

Good explanation of what, for me, is a complex topic.

Cheryl Fleming

Very informative video. Clear, concise, and useful explanations and instructions. Thanks, Gary.

Karen

So do 'smart folders' in all apple apps behave the same way as in Notes? ie - photos, mail, etc

Gary Rosenzweig

Karen: They are all the equivalent to "saved searches" if that is what you mean, yes.

Jaime Guzmán

Great explanation. Very confusing to me. But this made it easier.

Melody

Thank you Gary! Your videos are the BEST instructional videos! I'm going to use Smart Folders with tags now. Glad you included the # info because I had been using the default "colors" for tags

Peter

Very useful, learnt a lot. I tried using tags, which I have never used before, and found could not add a tag to locked note. Is there a way to do this?

Peter: That's right, you can't use tags in locked notes. Otherwise the result you get would be inconsistent as it wouldn't be proper to be able to tell what is in a locked note while it was locked.

Comments Closed.

Using Smart Folders In Mac Notes

Comments: 8 Responses to “Using Smart Folders In Mac Notes”

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