AI coding assistants like Claude Code, Cursor, and Windsurf are no longer just autocomplete. They are agents that read your codebase, remember decisions across sessions, and leave behind a growing trail of context files — memory files, conversation plans, project notes, settings.

These files are plain text sitting on your disk. They encode critical decisions, architectural trade-offs, and feedback you gave the AI. But most developers never look at them, let alone organize them.

TagSpaces can change that. In this post, we will walk through how to use TagSpaces to browse, tag, and search your AI context files — and how to go further by building a linked digital brain from interconnected Markdown files.

Browsing the '.claude' Folder​

If you use Claude Code, you have a ~/.claude/ directory that grows with every session. Add it as a location in TagSpaces, and you get an instant overview:

• Memory files — what your AI remembers about you, your preferences, and your projects
• Plan files — step-by-step implementation plans the AI created during sessions
• Settings — tool permissions, hooks, and project-specific configuration

Every file renders with a live preview — Markdown, JSON, YAML — so you can read AI-generated context without opening a separate editor. Use the folder tree to navigate between projects, or switch to a flat view to see all memory files across every project at once.

Tagging What Matters​

Most AI-generated context is ephemeral. But some of it encodes decisions you will need months from now. TagSpaces lets you tag these files so they are findable when it matters:

• decision — architectural choices, trade-offs, rejected alternatives
• feedback — corrections you gave the AI that should persist across sessions
• stale — context that is no longer accurate and should be reviewed or removed
• reference — pointers to external systems, docs, or dashboards

Tags work across all file types — Markdown, JSON, YAML, images — and travel with the file when you copy or move it. Combined with full-text search, you can find every AI decision related to "authentication" across all your projects in seconds.

Building a Digital Brain with Linked Markdown Files​

TagSpaces is not just a viewer for AI-generated files. With the frontmatter support and internal link resolution introduced in version 6.10, it becomes a capable tool for building and navigating a personal knowledge base made of interconnected Markdown files.

How It Works​

Create Markdown files with YAML frontmatter for metadata and standard [links](./other-file.md) to connect them:

---
title: Authentication Architecture
created: 2026-03-15
status: approved
---

# Authentication Architecture

We chose JWT with refresh tokens over session-based auth.
See [Trade-off Analysis](./auth-tradeoffs.md) for the full
comparison. The implementation plan is in
[Sprint 12 Plan](./sprint-12.md#auth-implementation).

Related decisions:

- [API Rate Limiting](./rate-limiting.md)
- [Role-Based Access Control](./rbac.md)

In TagSpaces, clicking these links navigates directly to the referenced file. The frontmatter is rendered in a collapsible header — clean and out of the way, but accessible when you need to check metadata.

Why This Matters for AI Workflows​

The real power emerges when you connect your own notes with the context your AI generates. For example:

• Write a decisions/auth-architecture.md note summarizing a key decision
• Link it to the Claude Code memory file that records the AI's understanding of that decision
• Tag both with decision and security
• Six months later, search for "authentication" and find both the human reasoning and the AI context in one place

This is a digital brain — not a proprietary graph database, but a folder of plain files linked to each other. It works with TagSpaces, it works with any text editor, and it will still be readable in 20 years.

Beyond Markdown: Every File Type Is a Knowledge Artifact​

Most PKM tools treat non-Markdown files as attachments — second-class citizens hidden behind a link. TagSpaces takes the opposite approach: every file is a first-class knowledge node, regardless of format.

A real-world digital brain is not just notes. It is:

• PDFs — research papers, contracts, invoices, manuals
• Images and screenshots — UI mockups, whiteboard photos, architecture diagrams
• Bookmarks — saved web pages as MHTML or URL files, captured with the TagSpaces Web Clipper
• Emails — archived messages in EML or MSG format, preserving the full conversation context
• Spreadsheets — budgets, data exports, comparison tables
• Source code — scripts, config files, snippets
• Contacts — VCF files with client or colleague details
• Audio and video — meeting recordings, voice memos, tutorials

In TagSpaces, all of these render with live previews, can be tagged with the same tag system, show up in the same search results, and carry descriptions and metadata. A PDF of an API specification sits next to the Markdown decision doc that references it, both tagged architecture, both searchable, both browsable in grid, list, or gallery views.

This is what separates a file-based digital brain from a note-based one. Your knowledge does not live only in what you write — it lives in everything you collect, generate, save, and receive. A PKM tool that only handles Markdown is managing a fraction of what you actually know.

Importing Existing Knowledge Bases​

If you already maintain a knowledge base in Obsidian, Logseq, or any other tool that uses plain Markdown files with frontmatter, TagSpaces can browse it directly. Point TagSpaces at your existing vault folder — your notes render cleanly, frontmatter is recognized, and internal links work. No import step, no conversion, no sync.

This also means you can use your preferred writing tool for authoring and TagSpaces for organizing, tagging, and searching across the full collection — including all the non-Markdown files that your other PKM tool cannot handle natively.

Automating with tscmd​

For developers who prefer the terminal, the TagSpaces CLI can automate context management:

# Index your AI context for instant search
tscmd indexer ~/.claude/

# Tag all memory files modified this week
find ~/.claude -name "*.md" -mtime -7 -exec tscmd tag {} -t recent \;

# Clean up orphaned metadata from deleted projects
tscmd metacleaner ~/.claude/projects/

# Add a description to a critical decision file
tscmd describe ~/.claude/projects/myapp/memory/auth_decision.md \
  -d "JWT vs sessions decision — approved March 15, do not change without security review"

Set this up as a weekly cron job and your AI context stays indexed, tagged, and searchable without any manual effort.

The Workflow Loop​

The most effective pattern we have found is a simple loop:

1. Work with your AI assistant — Claude Code, Cursor, or any tool that generates context files
2. Browse in TagSpaces — see what the AI remembered, what plans it created, what decisions it recorded
3. Tag and annotate — mark critical decisions, flag stale context, add human descriptions
4. Link your own notes — connect your reasoning to the AI's context with Markdown links
5. Search before you prompt — before starting a new session, check what the AI already knows

The result is not just better file organization — it is trust. When you can see, search, and annotate what your AI remembers, you stop treating it as a black box. You start curating its memory the way you would curate your own notes.

Getting Started​

1. Add your .claude/ folder (or .cursor/, or any AI context directory) as a location in TagSpaces
2. Browse — most developers are surprised by how much context their AI has accumulated
3. Tag the keepers — start with just two or three tags: decision, feedback, stale
4. Start linking — create your own Markdown notes that reference AI-generated context
5. Optionally install tscmd — npm install -g @tagspaces/shell — for automated indexing and bulk tagging

For the full backstory on why AI context management is becoming a critical workflow — and how it compares to using Obsidian for the same purpose — see our in-depth article on Substack.

The files are already on your disk. TagSpaces makes them visible.

TagSpaces Desktop and Web are great for visual file organization. But when you need to tag 500 invoices, generate thumbnails for a NAS folder on a schedule, or let an AI agent sort your downloads — a GUI gets in the way.

Meet tscmd: a fully rewritten command-line tool that brings TagSpaces' core capabilities to the terminal. Five commands, non-interactive, idempotent, composable with standard Unix tools.

What It Does​

npm install -g @tagspaces/shell

One install, five commands:

• tscmd tag — add tags to files and folders (via filename or sidecar)
• tscmd describe — set descriptions from inline text, a file, or stdin
• tscmd indexer — generate a full-text search index for a folder tree
• tscmd thumbgen — recursively create thumbnails (including PDFs)
• tscmd metacleaner — find and remove orphaned sidecar files (dry-run by default)

A quick taste:

tscmd tag /photos/beach.jpg -t vacation portugal 2026
tscmd describe /projects/webapp -d "React frontend for the customer portal"
tscmd indexer /nas/shared-drive/

All metadata lands in .ts/ subdirectories as plain JSON — the same format TagSpaces Desktop and Web already read. No database, no daemon, no lock-in.

For full syntax, options, and setup instructions, see the tscmd documentation.

Built for AI Agents​

This is where tscmd gets interesting. Its non-interactive, stdin-friendly design makes it a natural tool for LLM-based agents that need to organize files programmatically.

Picture an agent processing incoming documents:

# Tag based on content analysis
tscmd tag /inbox/contract-acme.pdf -t contract client-acme 2026 legal

# Pipe an AI-generated summary as the file description
# Extract text, then summarize, then describe
pdftotext doc.pdf - | ollama run llama3 "Summarize the following text in one paragraph" \
  | tscmd describe doc.pdf -d -

# Prepare the folder for browsing in TagSpaces
tscmd thumbgen /inbox/
tscmd indexer /inbox/

The result: a fully organized, searchable, thumbnail-rich folder — created without any human interaction, browsable in TagSpaces the moment you open it.

Why agents love tscmd:

• No prompts, no confirmations, no interactive menus
• Idempotent — safe to retry on failure
• Stdin support — pipe generated text straight into descriptions
• Batch-friendly — multiple paths per command
• JSON metadata — machine-readable by design

Whether you are building an MCP tool server, a LangChain pipeline, or a cron-triggered bash script, tscmd gives your agent the ability to organize actual files on disk — not rows in a database, but real files that persist independently of any application.

Composable by Nature​

tscmd works the way Unix tools should — combine it with find, loops, or parallel:

# Tag all PDFs in an archive
find /archive -name "*.pdf" -exec tscmd tag {} -t document archived \;

# Apply a template description to every project folder
for dir in /projects/*/; do
  tscmd describe "$dir" -f /templates/project-readme.md
done

More examples and advanced patterns are in the documentation.

Get Started​

npm install -g @tagspaces/shell
tscmd tag ~/Desktop/test.txt -t hello world

Open the folder in TagSpaces — the tags appear immediately.

The source code is on GitHub, released under the MIT license — free to use, modify, and integrate into your own tools and workflows. We are actively exploring deeper integration with AI agent frameworks, including an MCP tool server that exposes tscmd as callable tools for Claude, GPT, and other agents. If you are building agent workflows that touch the file system, we would love to hear from you — reach out on GitHub or the community forum.

The 6.10 release cycle focuses on making everyday workflows smoother. It brings improvements to the Pro perspectives, makes Markdown documents more interconnected, adds new translations, and addresses a long list of smaller issues reported by the community. Here is a walkthrough of what is new.

Editing Contacts in Pro Extensions​

pro

Combined with TagSpaces' tagging and search capabilities, this turns the app into a capable no-cloud, offline-first contact manager. Store each contact as a standard .vcf file in a folder on your device or a self-hosted S3 location. Tag contacts by category, project, or relationship — client, supplier, colleague — and find anyone in seconds with full-text search. Since contacts are plain VCF files, they are portable to any address book application and will never be locked into a proprietary database or held hostage by a subscription service.

File Selection in the Gallery Perspective​

pro

For photographers and designers managing large visual libraries, this closes a significant workflow gap — you no longer need to switch to a list view to act on multiple files at once.

Calendar Perspective Improvements​

pro

Frontmatter Support in the Markdown Editor​

The built-in Markdown editor now recognizes and preserves YAML frontmatter blocks — the --- delimited metadata section at the top of a Markdown file. Frontmatter is displayed in a dedicated, collapsible header area rather than being rendered as regular document content.

This is a significant step for users who maintain knowledge bases in tools like Obsidian, Logseq, or Jekyll and want to browse or edit them in TagSpaces. Many personal knowledge management workflows rely on frontmatter to store metadata — tags, aliases, creation dates, custom properties — and until now, opening such files in TagSpaces would show the raw YAML as part of the document body.

Rename Option in the Entry Context Menu​

A small addition that saves multiple clicks: a Rename entry is now available directly in the context menu when you right-click on a file or folder. Previously, renaming required navigating to the properties panel. This brings the rename action in line with what most users expect from a file manager.

Tag Icons in Search Autocomplete​

The search autocomplete now shows tag icons alongside tag names as you type. This makes it significantly faster to identify the right tag when your library uses many similar names — the color and icon give you a visual cue before you finish typing.

New Languages: Polish and Danish​

TagSpaces is now fully translated into Polish and Danish, in addition to the existing language support. The app is also fully up to date in all previously supported languages, closing gaps that had accumulated in recent releases.

If you would like to help translate TagSpaces into your language or improve an existing translation, contributions are welcome here.

Media Player Volume Persistence​

A persistent minor annoyance is now fixed: the media player volume is saved between files. If you adjusted the volume while playing one file, it would silently reset to default the next time you opened a different file. Now your preferred volume setting is remembered and restored each time.

Internal Links in Markdown Documents​

Anchor links within a Markdown file now work correctly in the preview. If your document has multiple sections, you can link to any heading using the standard #heading-name syntax — for example [See also](#installation) — and clicking it will jump directly to that section.

This is particularly useful for longer notes, runbooks, or reference documents where a table of contents at the top links to sections further down the page.

External App Configuration via extconfig.json​

For teams and organizations deploying TagSpaces in managed environments, this release adds official support for extconfig.json on both the desktop and web editions. This allows administrators to pre-configure TagSpaces settings — default locations, UI options, feature flags — without modifying the app itself.

Full documentation is available at docs.tagspaces.org/dev/external-config.

Notable Fixes​

Beyond the features above, this release addresses a number of issues that were affecting reliability:

• Fixed the default perspective not always loading — for some folder the default perspective would fail to load and fall back to the previous perspective.
• Fixed date extraction from file tags (#2414)
• Fixed meta file handling on read-only S3 locations — TagSpaces was attempting to write meta files even when the location was configured as read-only
• Fixed folder background images not applying correctly (#2417)
• Fixed the sort order being lost after folder reload — files would revert to the default sort even after you had selected a custom one
• Fixed tag colors for newly selected tags in the tag selector
• Fixed link opening in both the web versions
• pro Fixed Kanban board thumbnails not loading for S3-based locations
• Various Windows-specific fixes and stability improvements

How to Update​

The new version is available from the downloads page. The PRO user should following the instructions in the update documentation to update their existing installation without losing data.

As always, if you run into anything unexpected, please open an issue on GitHub or reach out via the community forum. Your reports directly shape what gets fixed next.

The personal knowledge management space is crowded. Whether you're organizing research, managing projects, or simply trying to keep your digital life under control, the tool you pick shapes your entire workflow.

In this article we compare five popular options — TagSpaces, Evernote, Notion, Joplin, and Obsidian — across the dimensions that matter most: privacy, pricing, data ownership, collaboration, and extensibility. Our goal is to give you an honest, balanced overview, not a sales pitch.

Disclosure: This comparison is written by the creator of TagSpaces. We have linked to each competitor's official documentation so you can verify every claim independently.

Quick Overview​

TagSpaces​

TagSpaces takes a fundamentally different approach to personal organization. Rather than creating its own database or proprietary format, it works with your existing files and folders — adding tags, descriptions, and annotations stored directly alongside the files themselves, without locking your data into any cloud service.

Advantages​

• True data ownership. Your files stay where you put them — local disk, NAS, or S3-compatible storage. No vendor lock-in.
• Works with any file type. Tag, preview, and annotate PDFs, images, source code, audio, video, and more — not just notes.
• Privacy by default. The application requires no account. Your data never leaves your machine.
• Open source core. The Lite edition is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and auditable by anyone.
• Kanban, map, and calendar perspectives. Beyond a file list, TagSpaces Pro offers visual views that turn folders into interactive boards, timelines, and maps.
• Self-hostable web version. TagSpaces Pro Web runs in any browser from your own server or NAS.
• AI features. Local AI integration via Ollama enables private on-device content extraction, tagging suggestions, and summarization.
• Web clipper. A web clipper creating plain files, usable not only in TagSpaces.

Disadvantages​

• No real-time collaboration. Sharing files is possible via S3, but live co-editing is not supported.
• Steeper initial concept. The tagging-over-files model is unfamiliar to users coming from database-centric tools.
• Smaller ecosystem. Community and third-party integrations are limited compared to Notion or Evernote.

→ TagSpaces Documentation

Evernote​

Once the dominant force in note-taking, Evernote has undergone significant changes in recent years including ownership changes and pricing adjustments. It remains a capable, cloud-centric tool with a long history.

Advantages​

• Polished, mature experience. Years of refinement have produced a smooth, feature-rich note editor.
• Web clipper. Evernote's browser extension for saving web pages is one of the best in the category.
• Powerful search. Full-text search across notes and scanned documents (OCR) is a long-standing strength.
• Integrations. Connects with Google Drive, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and more.

Disadvantages​

• Data lives in the cloud. All content is stored on Evernote's servers. There is no fully local option.
• Pricing. The free tier has become very restrictive (one device, upload limits). Full functionality requires a paid subscription.
• Proprietary format. Exporting notes is possible but moving to another tool is cumbersome.
• Privacy concerns. As with any cloud-first service, users must trust the provider with their data.
• Narrower scope. Evernote is designed for notes and clippings — not for managing your entire file system.

→ Evernote Help & Learning

Notion​

Notion has become synonymous with the "all-in-one workspace" category — combining notes, databases, wikis, kanban boards, and project management into a single flexible surface.

Advantages​

• Extremely flexible. Pages can be plain documents, databases, kanban boards, calendars, or galleries, all within the same tool.
• Collaboration. Real-time co-editing and commenting make it well suited for teams.
• Large ecosystem. A rich template library and active community lower the barrier to getting started.
• Generous free tier. Individuals can use most features for free.
• AI features. Notion AI assists with writing, summarization, and Q&A over your workspace.

Disadvantages​

• Cloud only. Your data lives on Notion's servers. Offline access exists but is limited and occasionally unreliable.
• Not open source. The codebase is proprietary and the API is the only external interface.
• Performance. Complex databases with many items can feel sluggish, particularly on the web.
• Data portability concerns. Exporting a large Notion workspace to a usable format (Markdown, CSV) is imperfect and time-consuming.
• Overkill for personal use. The flexibility is a strength for teams but can feel overwhelming for individuals who just want to organize files and notes.

→ Notion Help Center

Joplin​

Joplin is a free, open-source note-taking application that stores everything as Markdown files. It is the go-to choice for users who want a clean Evernote replacement without cloud lock-in.

Advantages​

• Fully open source. Licensed under AGPL-3.0; the community is active and the code is auditable.
• End-to-end encrypted sync. Supports Nextcloud, WebDAV, OneDrive, Dropbox, and its own Joplin Cloud — all with E2E encryption.
• Standard file format. Notes are Markdown, which is readable by dozens of other tools.
• Desktop and mobile. Native apps on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android.
• Web clipper. A browser extension captures web content cleanly.
• No subscription required. Sync services are optional; a self-hosted WebDAV server works for free.

Disadvantages​

• Note-focused only. Joplin organizes notes and notebooks — it does not manage arbitrary file types.
• UI is functional, not beautiful. The interface is utilitarian and has not kept pace with the design polish of commercial alternatives.
• Limited collaboration. Sharing individual notes is supported; team workflows are not a core use case.
• Joplin Cloud is paid. The optional hosted sync service has a cost, though self-hosting is free.
• No visualization. No kanban, calendar, or graph views — it is a linear list of notebooks and notes.

→ Joplin Documentation

Obsidian​

Obsidian has grown rapidly by appealing to the "second brain" and personal knowledge management (PKM) community. Its core idea is a local vault of Markdown files connected by bidirectional links.

Advantages​

• Local-first. Your vault is a folder of plain Markdown files on your disk. No account required for the core app.
• Bidirectional links and graph view. Linking notes and visualizing the connections is Obsidian's signature feature.
• Highly extensible. A large plugin ecosystem (community plugins) adds kanban boards, calendars, databases, spaced repetition, and much more.
• Active community. One of the largest and most enthusiastic PKM communities online.
• Works with any sync. Because notes are plain files, you can sync them with iCloud, Dropbox, Git, or any other file sync tool.

Disadvantages​

• Not open source. The Obsidian application itself is proprietary, even though the file format is plain Markdown.
• Commercial sync/publish are paid. Obsidian Sync and Obsidian Publish are subscription services.
• Steep learning curve for full power. Getting the most from Obsidian requires investing in a personal system (tags, templates, plugins) that can take weeks to build.
• Note-centric. Like Joplin, it is designed for notes and does not manage general files, images, or documents the way TagSpaces does.
• Mobile experience lags. The mobile apps exist but are less capable than the desktop versions.

→ Obsidian Help

How to Choose​

Choose TagSpaces if you want to organize your existing files without moving them to a database, value strong privacy, need to tag and preview many file types (not just notes), or want to self-host.

Choose Evernote if you have a long history with the platform, rely heavily on its web clipper and OCR search, and are comfortable with cloud storage.

Choose Notion if you work in a team, need a flexible all-in-one workspace combining notes with databases and project management, and do not require a fully offline or local-first setup.

Choose Joplin if you want a no-nonsense, open-source Evernote replacement with end-to-end encrypted sync and a standard file format, and notes are your primary content type.

Choose Obsidian if you are building a personal knowledge base, enjoy connecting ideas through links, want deep plugin extensibility, and your workflow is note-centric.

Final Thoughts​

There is no single best tool — each reflects a different set of priorities. TagSpaces occupies a unique position: it is the only option here that manages your entire file system rather than creating a separate note silo. If your content already lives in folders — as documents, images, PDFs, or code — TagSpaces augments those files without requiring you to move or convert them.

For teams or users who need rich collaboration and polished writing experiences, Notion or Evernote may be more appropriate. For privacy-conscious note-takers, Joplin and Obsidian offer solid local-first alternatives.

The good news is that these tools are not mutually exclusive. Many users run Obsidian or Joplin for their writing alongside TagSpaces for broader file organization — getting the best of both worlds.

We are off to a running start in 2026! Over the last three months, the team has been working hard to refine the core TagSpaces experience. With the releases of Version 6.9 (February) and Version 6.8 (December), we are introducing a powerful new way to manage AI interactions, a massive overhaul of our file viewers, and significant usability improvements for our Pro users.

Here is a deep dive into what is new and how it helps your workflow.

🧠 AI That Remembers and Adapts​

In Version 6.9, we have moved beyond simple chat interactions to make the AI Assistant a more integrated part of your document management.

• Custom Prompt Management: We know that many of you use specific prompts repeatedly—whether it is summarizing invoices, extracting keywords, or translating text. You can now create, edit, and delete custom prompts. This allows you to build a library of commands tailored to your specific workflow, saving you from re-typing complex instructions every time.
• Contextual Content Extraction: Previously, analyzing a document often meant copy-pasting text. Now, we have added the ability to extract content directly from the file viewers into the AI chat. You can open a PDF or a text file and ask the AI to work with that content immediately.
• A Better Chat Experience: We have refined the UX with a new prompt selection menu and a history feature that remembers your last used prompt. Plus, for those writing detailed queries, the editor now supports multiline editing (using Shift+Enter), giving you the space you need to be precise.

📞 New Extension: Contact Viewer​

pro

This effectively turns TagSpaces into a lightweight, privacy-focused contact manager. You can now apply the full power of TagSpaces to your address book: tag contacts by category, add private notes, or group them with related project files. The viewer is fully interactive—clicking an email address instantly opens your default mail client, while clicking a phone number initiates a call (on supported devices).

📄 The Viewer Overhaul​

The ability to preview files without opening external apps is the backbone of TagSpaces. In Version 6.9, we executed a major refactoring of our most critical viewers.

• Performance & Stability: We have rewritten the underlying code for PDF, JSON, ZIP, EPUB, RTF, HTML, MHTML, MSG, URL, and Image viewers. This "spring cleaning" results in faster load times, better rendering, and improved stability when switching between files.
• New File Format Support:

  ---

  • ODT (OpenDocument Text): We have added basic preview support for .odt files, a highly requested feature for users of LibreOffice and OpenOffice.
  • WEBLOC Support: Mac users can now preview macOS website shortcuts directly in the URL viewer.
• Audio Thumbnails: For musicians, podcasters, and sound engineers, browsing audio files just got easier. TagSpaces now generates visual thumbnails for audio files, making your sound libraries as visual as your image galleries.

🎨 UI Flexibility & Visual Feedback​

We are constantly trying to find the balance between a clean interface and information density. The recent updates give you more control over that balance.

• Resizable Properties Panel: One size rarely fits all. In v6.9, you can now drag to resize the file and folder properties panel. Whether you need a wide view to read long metadata descriptions or a narrow view to maximize the file list, the choice is now yours.
• Visual Badges (v6.8): Browsing through hundreds of files? New visual badges in the entry tabs now indicate at a glance if a file or folder has an active AI chat or a description. You no longer need to click a file to know if you've already analyzed it.
• Native Desktop Feel: We have added a dedicated Window menu and a Print option directly in the File menu, making the desktop application feel more integrated with your operating system.

🚀 Pro Power: FolderViz & Calendar​

pro

• Per-Folder Settings: Previously, changing settings in the FolderViz or Calendar perspectives applied globally. Now, you can apply per-folder settings. This is incredibly useful if you want your "Invoices" folder to display a timeline based on modification dates, while your "Photos" folder uses creation dates.
• Refined Geo-Tagging: We have enhanced the Geo-tagging capabilities, offering a smoother experience when placing files on the map and managing location metadata.

🛠️ Performance & Polish​

Beyond the big features, we have smoothed out the edges:

• Thumbnail Generation: We have optimized the engine to generate thumbnails faster and more efficiently, reducing the load on your system when opening large folders.
• Editor Upgrades: The internally used libraries (Markdown and Monaco) have been updated, resulting in a more stable writing and coding experience.
• Scroll & Search: We’ve improved vertical scrolling in the properties panel and refined the search autocomplete to be snappier.

We are excited to announce the release of TagSpaces 6.7! This update is packed with visual enhancements, deep system integration features, and significant improvements to our AI capabilities. Whether you are using the free Lite version or the Pro edition, version 6.7 offers a faster, smoother, and more customizable experience.

Here is an overview of what’s new in version 6.7 (including updates from 6.7.2 and 6.7.3).

✨ A Fresh Coat of Paint: 7 New Themes​

Customization is at the heart of TagSpaces, and with 6.7, we are giving you more ways to make the app your own. We have added 7 brand new user interface themes. Whether you prefer a high-contrast dark mode for reading late at night or a soft, light theme for organization, there is a fresh look waiting for you in the settings.

📅 Calendar Perspective (BETA)​

We are thrilled to officially release the Calendar Perspective to all users! While currently in BETA, this feature allows you to visualize your files based on their creation or modification dates. It’s a fantastic way to browse photo collections, track project timelines, or simply see what you worked on during a specific week.

🚀 Performance & Editor Improvements​

Under the hood, we have optimized the React and MUI rendering engines. The result? A faster and smoother UI with improved responsiveness throughout the application.

We have also updated our Markdown Editor. With new libraries and usability refinements, writing notes and documentation within TagSpaces is more comfortable than ever.

🖥️ Deeper System Integration​

TagSpaces 6.7 feels more native to your operating system than ever before:

• Open from Command Line: On macOS and Windows, you can now launch files directly into TagSpaces via the command line.
• Default File Opener: You can now register TagSpaces as the default application for .md, .html, .mmd, and .txt files, letting you jump straight into your workflow from your file explorer.
• Thumbnails for Everyone: Great news for our Lite users—thumbnail generation for all supported file types is now available in the free LITE version, making it easier to browse your images and documents visually.

🤖 AI Chat Enhancements​

For those using our AI features, we have polished the chat experience significantly:

• Better Flow: Message order has been reversed for a more natural conversation flow, and scrolling behavior has been improved.
• Export & History: We’ve improved the reliability of exporting chat sessions and added author information to the chat history.
• Usability: The AI chat menu has been refined for easier access and the HTML and MD chat exports were improved significantly.

🛡️ Safety & Search​

• Folder/File Description Revisions: We have added revision support for the file and folder descriptions. You can now track changes and revert to previous versions, providing better safety for your documentation.
• Fuzzy Search: You can now use fuzzy search inside tag descriptions. You can also use the tag description to add synonyms for the tags, making it much easier to find the specific tag you are looking for.

🛠️ Polish & Fixes (v6.7.3)​

In our latest hotfix (6.7.3), we focused on refining the user experience:

• Notifications: We improved the UX for new version notifications, so you never miss an update.
• Windows Fixes: We fixed an issue where .ts meta folders were not automatically hidden on Windows.
• General Fixes: We resolved layout shifts in the entry viewer, improved tag group coloring for location tags, and fixed a context menu tagging issue.

📥 Download TagSpaces 6.7​

Ready to explore the new themes and the Calendar perspective? You can download the latest version for your platform from the links below.

Try It Today​

This release makes TagSpaces more powerful, customizable, and reliable than ever. Whether you’re an everyday user or a Pro subscriber, these updates give you smarter ways to manage and explore your digital world.

👉 Download the latest free/pro version and experience the new features yourself!

We’re thrilled to announce a brand new version of TagSpaces, a tool for working with your files without cloud lock-in. This release brings powerful new features, smarter ways to work, and plenty of fixes and improvements to make your experience smoother than ever.

🚀 Organize Smarter with WorkSpaces​

One of the biggest highlights of this release is WorkSpaces. Now you can group locations and tag groups into dedicated WorkSpaces, making it easier to organize different projects, teams, or areas of your digital life.

Whether you’re managing work documents, personal photos, or creative projects, WorkSpaces help you keep everything neatly separated.

• Use workspaces to separate professional and personal content.
• Create dedicated workspaces for large projects with their own tag structure.
• If you handle sensitive data, a separate workspace can help keep it isolated.

Find more about workspaces in the documentation.

📝 Smarter File Creation with Templates​

Creating new files just got a serious upgrade:

• Markdown is now the default format for new files.
• You can now use customizable templates for faster, more consistent file creation.

From meeting notes to project outlines, templates save you time and keep your files structured.

All templates can be managed in the tab File Templates of the app settings.

🔍 More Powerful Search​

If you are in the context of a given workspace, the global search will deliver only results from the location, which are assigned to this workspaces.

Finding files is even easier thanks to a new “date created” filter. You can now filter results not only by when files were last modified but also by when they were originally created. Perfect for digging up older documents or managing files chronologically.

✨ AI Enhancements​

We’ve expanded TagSpaces’ AI-powered features to give you more control:

• Configure AI tasks and queries to fit your workflow.
• Reset AI prompt templates to their defaults with a single click.
• See which AI model generated your file descriptions.

🖼️ Better Thumbnails & Previews​

Visual organization is key, and this release improves it dramatically:

• Thumbnails are now generated automatically when you open files in the image-viewer, 3d-viewer and font-viewer.
• In the 3d-viewer, font-viewer and media-player extensions, you can now create thumbnails from the currently visible part of the 3d-model, movie or font glyph.
• Folders get a default thumbnail chosen from their contents, making it easier to recognize them at a glance.

🍏 Easier macOS Tag Import​

For macOS users, importing Finder tags is now smoother than ever with a new, user-friendly dialog. You can even choose whether or not to import tags recursively.

📚 Other Notable Improvements​

• Search queries are automatically cleared when switching folders or locations.
• More consistent UI and updated translations.
• Performance boosts for Kanban boards and file previews.
• New context menu options for bookmarks and history.

  

🐛 Fixes That Matter​

We’ve also squashed some annoying bugs:

• Fixed crashes when opening folders with Pro-only perspectives in the free version.
• Fixed rename issues when using the context menu.
• Fixed unwanted folder selections after creating a new one in grid view.
• Fixed tag handling issues in Kanban and unnecessary refreshes in file preview.

Try It Today​

This release makes TagSpaces more powerful, customizable, and reliable than ever. Whether you’re an everyday user or a Pro subscriber, these updates give you smarter ways to manage and explore your digital world.

👉 Download the latest version and experience the new features yourself!

New Features to Boost Your Productivity​

1. Drag-to-Select in Grid and List Views
Managing files and folders just got easier! With the ability to select multiple items using mouse dragging, you can now perform bulk actions faster, making file organization a breeze.

2. Advanced Search and Saved Queries Now in TagSpaces Lite
Enjoy powerful search capabilities without upgrading! Advanced search and saved queries are now available in TagSpaces Lite, allowing users to quickly find and organize files without hassle. We have also added a nice search query editor:

3. Ollama AI Integration for Web Version
Previously limited to the desktop app, Ollama AI can now be used in the web version, enabling smarter file management on any device.

4. AI-Powered Summarization and Tagging for HTML Files
The configured AI engine in TagSpaces can now summarize and tag HTML files automatically, making it easier to categorize and retrieve web-based content.

5. Enhanced AI Customization Options

• Choose whether to append or replace descriptions with AI-generated content.
• A new bulk AI operations dialog simplifies applying AI enhancements to multiple files at once.
• AI tagging can now use tags from the tag library, improving consistency across your organization.
• A new setting allows users to define the maximum length of AI-generated summaries, ensuring concise and relevant content.
• Support for more image formats in AI analysis enhances the accuracy and reach of the AI chat feature.

Enhancements for a Better Experience​

• The built-in PDF viewer has been updated for improved performance and usability.
• New translations: Hebrew and Chilean Spanish are now supported, making TagSpaces accessible to a broader audience.
• Web version flexibility: Prebuilt third-party extensions can now be configured in the web version, enhancing customization options.

Bug Fixes and Performance Improvements​

• Fixed an issue where the current folder column was not hiding in the Kanban board.
• Index generation improvements for better performance.
• General performance enhancements to make TagSpaces run faster and smoother.

Why Upgrade to TagSpaces 6.3?​

This update makes file management smarter and more efficient by integrating enhanced AI capabilities, expanding search features, and refining the user experience. Whether you're a casual user or a power organizer, TagSpaces 6.3 delivers the tools you need to stay in control of your files.

Upgrade today and experience the next level of file organization!

For more details, visit: TagSpaces 6.3 Release Notes

New Features to Supercharge Your Productivity​

Unlimited Local AI-Chat for Folder-Based Assistance​

Experience the future of local AI interaction with TagSpaces! We've integrated support for unlimited folder-based local AI-chat using a locally pre-installed Ollama LLM engine. this feature allows you to interact with your files conversationally, ensuring privacy and performance while enhancing productivity. It's not just about storing files anymore; it's about interacting with them smartly. Learn how to enable the AI functionalities in our documentation.

AI-Powered Tag and Description Generation​

Enhance your image and PDF management like never before. With our new Pro feature, you can now leverage AI to automatically generate tags and descriptions for images and PDFs. This intelligent tagging system saves time by understanding the content of your files and providing relevant metadata without manual input. Say goodbye to tedious file labeling—let AI do the heavy lifting!

Automatic Link Extraction during full-text indexing​

Easily extract links from text, markdown, PDF files, and even file and folder descriptions.

These links are displayed in a dedicated tab for quick reference, making it easier to access the related resources.

Visualize Relationships with New Links Graph View​

Explore your files like never before using the Links Graph view in the FolderViz perspective. These visual tools provide insights into file relationships and connections, enhancing organization and discovery.

Visualize Tag Clouds with New Tags Graph View​

The Tags Graph offers a visual representation of how your tags interconnect with files and folders, making it easier to identify patterns and relationships.

New Text Editor Based on Monaco Library​

Experience unparalleled editing power with our new text editor powered by the renowned Monaco library. Known for its robust features and performance, this editor provides a seamless writing experience that supports syntax highlighting, code completion, and more—ideal for developers and content creators alike.

New Media Player Extension​

Enjoy your media files effortlessly with our new extension based on the Vidstack library. This powerful player ensures the playback of various audio and video formats right within TagSpaces, offering a rich media experience without leaving your file management environment.

Enhancements for a Smoother Experience​

Improved Content Extraction​

Accurate extraction of content during the full-text indexing from text, markdown, HTML, and PDF files ensures that all valuable information is captured and easily accessible.

Create geo-tagged files directly on the map​

Use the new context menu in the mapique perspective to create files tagged with your current location directly. This feature enhances spatial organization and contextual file creation, making it easier to manage geographically-relevant data.

Clustering of Geo-Tagged Entries​

Improve your geographical data handling with new clustering capabilities for geo-tagged entries in the mapique perspective. The geographically closely placed files a clustered together to get a clearer view of your spatial information and streamline location-based analysis.

User Interface Enhancements​

We've made several enhancements to improve usability, including interface improvements on small and mobile screens, better design for application settings, pagination for folders in grid and list perspectives, and configurable tag collection limit. These refinements ensure that TagSpaces remains intuitive and user-friendly across all devices.

Bug Fixes​

As always, we’ve addressed a number of minor bugs to enhance stability and performance. Our team is committed to delivering a seamless experience, and these fixes are part of our ongoing efforts to improve TagSpaces for you.

Why Upgrade to TagSpaces 6.2?​

This release reflects our commitment to innovation and user-centric design. By incorporating cutting-edge AI, advanced visualization tools, and interface improvements, TagSpaces 6.2 empowers users to:

• Save time with automated tagging and enhanced content discovery.
• Gain deeper insights through powerful graph visualizations.
• Enjoy smoother navigation and customization for various workflows.

Don’t wait to explore the future of file management. Upgrade to TagSpaces 6.2 today and experience the difference!

Key New Features​

Native Drag and Drop from TagSpaces to other Applications​

The long-awaited native drag-and-drop functionality is here! You can now seamlessly drag files from TagSpaces to other applications or between different TagSpaces instances. This allows for a more intuitive workflow and better multi-tasking between projects.

Real-Time Syncing Across Multiple Instances​

Do you run multiple local instances of TagSpaces simultaneously? Now, changes made to your tag library, history, search queries, and recent files are instantly synced across all currently running instances. No need to manually update or duplicate your work, TagSpaces keeps everything in sync for you.

Downloading Files Directly From URLs (Desktop Only)​

For desktop users, we’ve introduced the ability to download files directly from URLs into your TagSpaces locations. This means you can quickly add online resources without having to go through external download managers. Downloading files does not always works due to CORS settings on the web server, but it works in general for URLs to file ot S3 buckets.

Enhanced File Sharing TagSpaces Links​

We’ve made it easier than ever to share your files and folders through ts:// links, between TagSpaces installations using the same locations. This functionality is now more prominently placed, simplifying the process of generating and sharing TagSpaces-specific links with collaborators.

Create Link Files with .URL Extension​

A new functionality allows you to create link files with the .URL extension, natively supported on both macOS and Windows. This makes it easier to manage and reference external content directly from your TagSpaces workspace. Until now, the creation of URL files was only possible with the TagSpaces Web Clipper browser extension.

Improved History Tracking​

TagSpaces now offers an own history feature that tracks the files and folders you’ve opened. Easily revisit previous opened folders or files without needing to search through your location and folder structure.

Color-Coded Folders on Creation​

Customizing your folders just got better. The folder creation dialog now supports the ability to choose a folder background color during the creating process, enabling a more organized and visually appealing file management.

Automatic Opening of Specific file on opening Folders​

You can now set specific locations in which files (e.g., index.html) open automatically when navigating to a folder. This feature saves time when working on web projects or frequently accessed files.

Improved Fuzzy Search​

Fuzzy search is now more flexible. You can search for multiple words simultaneously, and even specify their position within the file name. Finding what you need has never been faster!

TagSpaces Pro Specific Features​

For our Pro users, we’ve included exclusive functionalities to boost your workflow:

• IPTC and EXIF Extraction: Automatically extract IPTC and EXIF metadata from images as file descriptions, perfect for photographers and media professionals.
• Mapique Perspective Full-Screen Mode: The Mapique perspective now includes a full-screen button, offering an immersive experience for spatial and map-based file organization.
• Kanban Drag-and-Drop to Folders: Now, you can drag files from a Kanban column directly to a location or folder in the location manager, enhancing project management and file organization.

Enhancements and UI Improvements​

We’ve also implemented a host of user experience and performance enhancements to streamline your daily operations:

• Added a New Tag Group with Emoji Tags: We have added a new tag group containing tags which have emoji as tag name. This is only a demonstration of the fact that TagSpaces can deal with emojis on various places such as tags, location name, file and folder descriptions and search queries.

  

• Redesigned File Creation & Editing Experience: Both the file creation and editing workflows have been redesigned for smoother, more intuitive operation.

  

• Improved Multi-File Tagging: We’ve enhanced the user experience when tagging multiple files simultaneously, making bulk operations faster and easier.
• Redesigned Entry Properties Interface: The entry properties panel has been revamped for a cleaner and more accessible design.
• Search Enhancements: Small improvements, like adjusting the shortcut for opening the search to Ctrl/Cmd + K and enabling fuzzy search in the search box, further refine the searching experience.

• Search in Markdown Editor: Now you can search directly within the markdown editor, making it easier to navigate and manage content in large text files.

Technical improvements​

• Improved Docker Integration: The Docker image was improved to support both TagSpaces Web Lite and TagSpaces Web Pro products. Just following this tutorial and in few steps you will have a running installation of our web based products.
• Migration to AWS JS SDK V3: This was huge change under to hood of the application, greatly improving the support of S3 based locations and enabling us to implement soon a server side encryption of the files located on S3 buckets, so stay tuned.
• Advanced Search by Entry ID: Finding your files just got easier with the addition of search by entry ID. Moreover, entry IDs are included in sharing links, providing a fallback mechanism if a file is moved.

Final Thoughts​

Out latest version is built around our commitment to helping you organize, tag, and manage your files as efficiently as possible. Whether you’re sharing files, syncing across multiple devices, or diving deep into metadata extraction, this update offers powerful new capabilities to enhance your workflow.

Ready to experience the new TagSpaces 6.0? Get it now and take your file management to the next level!

Your Own Decentralized Trello, Evernote, Dropbox Independent from Tech Companies...

In today's digital landscape, where data privacy, offline accessibility, and seamless file management are paramount, file-based apps have emerged as a simple yet powerful alternative to countless App/SaaS solutions. These apps utilize plain text files for storing data, offering numerous advantages such as independence from back-end or online services, offline functionality, easy transferability, and data ownership. TagSpaces not only supports a wide range of file-based apps but also offers a host of features that make it an ideal choice for users seeking a versatile and efficient solution.

What Are File-Based Apps?​

File-based apps leverage plain text files as the primary storage medium for their data and content. By avoiding dependencies on databases and online services, these apps offer a range of benefits that traditional applications struggle to match. Users can operate these apps completely offline, eliminating the need for an internet connection. Furthermore, file-based apps offer effortless data transfer through synchronization services or file transfer software, enabling users to seamlessly switch between devices. The data in file-based apps remains accessible and readable, ensuring that users retain full control and avoid vendor lock-ins. TagSpaces provides the ability to turn a folder on your hard drive into a dedicated file app based on the files inside and their purpose. TagSpaces introduces the concept of perspectives, which can be assigned to folders. When you open a folder assigned to a perspective in TagSpaces, it is visualized accordingly. For example, if a folder contains photos, you can set the gallery perspective for it, or if it contains tasks for a specific project, the kanban perspective is the appropriate choice.

TagSpaces has emerged as a leading platform for file-based apps, providing a comprehensive suite of functionalities that simplify data management and enhance productivity. Let's explore some of the app categories which are currently covered:

File Management with Tagging Support​

TagSpaces offers an intuitive interface for organizing and managing files and folders. Its robust file operations, such as renaming, copying, moving, and tagging, provide users with full control over their digital assets. With desktop application, you can effortlessly navigate through your file system, ensuring quick and efficient access to your documents.

Digital Note-Taking​

TagSpaces serves as an excellent tool for capturing and organizing digital notes. Whether you're creating to-do lists, jotting down ideas, or drafting meeting minutes, TagSpaces allows you to create, edit, and organize your notes seamlessly. With its extensive tagging capabilities, you can categorize and label your notes for easy retrieval.

Media Gallery and Player​

TagSpaces simplifies the management of your multimedia files, including images, audio, and video. It provides a visually appealing gallery view with a presentation mode, allowing you to browse and showcase your media collection effortlessly. Additionally, there is a built-in media player, eliminating the need for external applications to enjoy your favorite audio or video files.

Document Viewer​

With TagSpaces, you can view various document formats, including PDF, Word, and Excel files. This feature eliminates the need for specialized software, enabling you to preview and work with documents directly within the app. Whether you're reviewing reports, studying spreadsheets, or reading e-books, TagSpaces streamlines the document viewing experience.

Task and Project Management​

TagSpaces offers a flexible platform for organizing tasks and managing projects. With its Kanban board functionality, you can create customizable boards to track the progress of your tasks, assign priorities, and collaborate with team members. This feature enhances productivity by providing a visual representation of your workflow.

Bookmark Manager​

TagSpaces, together with its web clipper browser extension, allows you to efficiently organize and access your bookmarks within its interface. By tagging and categorizing your bookmarks, you can quickly find relevant web pages, articles, or resources. This integrated bookmark manager eliminates the need for browser-specific bookmarking tools, enabling you to centralize and streamline your online references.

Geotagging and Digital Maps​

TagSpaces facilitates geotagging of files, enabling you to associate location data with your photos, documents, or any other files. You can view and manage these geotagged files on digital maps directly within the app, making it ideal for organizing travel photos, field research, or geospatial data.

3D Model Viewer​

TagSpaces includes a built-in viewer for 3D models, allowing you to preview and interact with various file formats. Whether you're working with CAD designs, architectural models, or 3D visualizations, the applications provides a convenient environment for exploring and inspecting your 3D assets.

File-Based Apps in Your Browser​

All the presented file apps work in the TagSpaces desktop app and do not require an internet connection or a service account (yes, even the geo-tagging can be configured to work with your own local map tile server). The reason for this is that all the data you need is on your hard drive or SSD in the form of files and folders. However, imagine having these files or part of them stored on the cloud, allowing you to share them between different computers, mobile devices, or with others on the internet. In this case, you would need an object storage service such as AWS S3, Wasabi, or Cloudflare R2. You can continue to use the desktop version of the app, which can connect to such storage, or set up your own web application. Setting up the web version only requires a static web server, and enables you to use the application from any device with a modern web browser.

Just imagine having your own Trello, Evernote, or Dropbox without any tracking and vendor lock-in. You would completely own your data and have the freedom to share part of it with others...

Your File-Based Apps on Many Devices​

Working with the same app on multiple devices is an essential requirement in today's app world. To have your file app on other devices, you can either sync the folder containing your file app to another computer or have your devices connect to an S3-compatible object storage containing these files. Here are the available options:

• Using sync services like Dropbox, Google Drive, or Syncthing - connect TagSpaces to locally synced folders.
• Using a common S3 bucket on your NAS (e.g., Minio) - directly connect TagSpaces Desktop or Web (also on mobile devices as a PWA) to the S3 service.
• Using a common S3 bucket on the internet (AWS, Wasabi, etc.) - directly connect TagSpaces Desktop and Web (also on mobile devices as a PWA) to the S3 service.

Sharing Files​

Sharing files is another basic requirement, which is addressed by offering time-limited sharing links for files on object storage, as well as internal sharing links for other TagSpaces users. More details on file sharing can be found in the documentation of the application.

About the software architecture​

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here a simple diagram showing the software architecture of the native (Mac, Windows, Linux, Android) and the web (modern browser) applications:

A comprehensive diagram of how TagSpaces can be installed, deployed, and configured can be found in the application's documentation. The most interesting part in both diagrams is that the application consists of only two tiers: front-end and file storage. There is no typical back-end or database for storage. In the current design, the front-end directly accesses the file/object storage. This might sound controversial to some experts but significantly simplifies the deployment, maintenance, and portability of the application. TagSpaces started as a browser extension and expanded into a full-blown desktop application that directly works with local files. In the web version, we chose to keep this simplicity and integrated the ability to directly manage files in S3 object storage. Since TagSpaces primarily targets private users, we believe this decision strikes a good balance. The TagSpaces apps connect directly to the object storage and can store the access keys for the object storage in the user's browser (for the web app). We are aware that this is not always possible or recommended and provide alternative configuration options for saving locations.

Limitations of this approach​

File-based apps have some downsides, primarily due to the absence of a database. This can cause performance issues with full-text search or when searching in folders containing many files. The solution is to externalize the search index creation. There are two options for this: using the command-line tool or using AWS Lambda functions to create the search index.

Another potential issue is setting up a web app and maintaining an object storage in your local network or on the internet. Unlike the desktop application, which can be installed with a double click, setting up the web app can be challenging for someone without expertise in web servers or cloud app hosting. Fortunately, services like Wasabi make maintaining an object storage in the cloud easy and affordable (starting at around $5 USD/EUR for 1TB per month).

Conclusion​

TagSpaces has revolutionized the way users manage and interact with their files by supporting file-based apps. By harnessing the power of plain text files and offering a rich set of features, TagSpaces empowers users with data ownership, offline accessibility, and seamless file management. Whether you're organizing files, taking notes, managing projects, or exploring multimedia content, the app provides a versatile and user-friendly platform. Embrace the potential of file-based apps with TagSpaces and experience a new level of productivity and control over your digital assets.

File revisions​

A key feature of document management systems is the ability to create revisions of the edited files. Until now, this feature was missing from TagSpaces. However, it can now be enabled in the Advanced tab of the application's Settings dialog box. Once activated, a full copy of the current file (e.g. TXT, MD, HTML or JSON) is created with each save.

The revisions are stored in a subfolder of the .ts folder, which is located in the same folder as the file being currently edited. The name of the folder is a unique ID, which is the same as the ID of the document's sidecar file. The created file copies are listed in the Revisions tab of the file properties view, as seen in the screenshot.

From here, you can preview and restore old revisions. It is also possible to delete all revisions, by clicking the button with the trash bin icon, located in the revision's table header.

Auto-saving changes​

The auto-save feature can be enabled individually for each editable file. When it is enabled, the application will save any changes you make automatically every 40 seconds. You can also save the file manually by clicking the save button or by pressing the CTRL+S key combination.

Search history​

The search experience just got even easier! You can now access your previous searches instantly with the new search history feature. Simply enter "s:" in the search dropdown and you'll have the option to view and select from your past queries. Use the up and down arrow keys to select the search and press enter to execute it in the exact same location as it was initially performed.

Installable extensions​

Installable viewer and editor extensions, laying the ground for installable third party extensions

Computing the folder size​

It is now possible to view the size of a folder and its sub-folders and files in the folder properties window. This allows users to quickly and easily assess how much space a folder is taking up on their computer. The feature is available for now only in the desktop application for locally located folders.

Copy and move folders​

The latest feature introduced to local files and S3 buckets is the ability to copy and move folders. This new feature provides users with an improved folder selector, allowing them to easily move or copy files and folders to different locations. With this new update, users can easily transfer files with the click of a button in a more efficient manner.

Downloading files from URLs​

We have added the capability to download files and HTML pages from URL's both locally and onto S3 buckets. This enhancement gives our users the flexibility to access content from both local and cloud sources. The functionality can be found in the re-designed dialog box for creating new files, folders and locations.

QR Code for download links​

The functionality for creating time limited download links for files located on S3 bucket is extracted in a separate dialog box. A QR code for the link is then generated there automatically.

Location duplication​

A new menu option has been added to the context menu of a location that allows the user to create a duplicate location in the same bucket that is pointing to a different sub-folder. The functionality is available in the context menu of every location.

Further enhancements​

Last but not least, you will find here some further improvement in the application.

• Searching for actions is now completely case-insensitive
• The file creation dialog has been visually enhanced
• Thumbnails are now automatically generated upon successful upload to S3 buckets
• The click protection layer for location loading will now disappear automatically after 5 seconds
• The design of the file types tab in the settings has been significantly improved
• Added a parameter for preventing search engine indexing of TagSpaces web installations

Extension for viewing 3D models​

We created a brand-new extension for viewing 3d models. For now the extension supports a preview of 3d models in STL, OBJ, GLTF and GLB file formats.

Extension for previewing emails in MSG format​

This version includes a new extension for opening of emails saved in MSG format. This format is used mostly by Microsoft Outlook ®, which can meanwhile export emails in the more common EML format. Previewing EML emails is already supported in MHTML viewer extension. Both extensions make TagSpaces a good solution for organizing important emails with the help of tags.

Extension for viewing reveal.js slides​

With this extension you will be able to open slides made with reveal.js directly in TagSpaces. This extension has, for now, an experimental character and may not support all of the countless features of the reveal.js-presentations, but even so it is a nice addition to the application.

Extension for showing markdown file as mind map​

Added new experimental extension for displaying the structure of markdown-files as mind map based on markmap.js library.

PDF extension support annotations​

In this release we updated the pdf.js library which is the core of our PDF viewer. As a consequence you can now annotate PDF files directly in TagSpaces, by adding text and freehand drawing in different brush sizes, colors and transparency.

Search Enhancements​

The search component was greatly improved for supporting common actions in TagSpaces and for easy generation of search queries.

Search actions​

As usually the search can be opened by the CTRL+SHIFT+F (⌘+SHIFT+F on Mac) key binding. New in this version is the opening of a dropdown, having the two sections. The first is called actions and here you can choose among the following items, using the up and down arrow keys or typing the one letter shortcut followed by a column:

• locations - typing l: will make the dropdown list the current locations, so you easily find and open one by writing the first letters of it
• filter - typing f: will filter the current content of the folder by, without starting a new search
• history - typing h:will make the dropdown list the lastly opened or edited files so you can filter and open one of them
• bookmarks - typing b: will allow to filter and open your bookmarked files or folders
• search query - typing q:will allow to filter and start your saved search queries

Search query composition​

With the following commands you will have the ability to easy compose complex search queries, combining or excluding tags, choosing the file size limit, type and details.

• AND tag - typing + will show the list of all tags in the dropdown so you can select tags which should be present in every file or folder in the search results
• NOT tag - typing | will show the list of all tags in the dropdown so you can select tags which can be presented in file or folder in the search results, so you will get for example all files tagged with "tag1" or "tag2".
• OR tag - typing - will show the list of all tags in the dropdown so you can select a tags which should be excluded from the search results
• file type - typing t: will present a list from the support file type group, so narrow the search result to for example documents or images
• file size - typing s: will present a list with predefined files sizes
• last modified - typing lm: will present a list of predefined points back in time
• search scope - typing sc: will allow you to choose among the following search scopes: current folder, current location, global search in all locations
• search accuracy - typing a: will allow to toggle the search accuracy between: fuzzy, semi-strict or string.

You can find more on composing search queries in the documentation.

Support for deploying on Cloudflare​

Both web versions of TagSpaces Lite and Pro can now be easily installed and hosted on Cloudflare Pages. The only you need is the creation of a free Cloudflare account and to follow the steps in this simple tutorial

Further enhancements​

• We extended the app to preview images and videos of the following file formats: CR2, NEF, DNG, TGA, 3GP and 3G2.
• The pro version, supports now thumbnail generation for CR2, NEF, DNG, TGA, TIFF files
• We have greatly improved the files editing functionality, by enabling the staying in edit mode after saving, adding cancel editing button and implementing an animation for the saving process.
• Now the lead colors of a given TagSpaces theme are transferring automatically to theme of most file viewer and editor extensions, providing a more consistent user experience.
• We have added a button for generating new location id in the locations setting and implemented a check for existing location id. This is useful if you want to share a given location with somebody else via Dropbox for example.
• Added a switch in the settings of the grid perspective to disable the appearance of file or folder descriptions over the tiles in the grid.
• Extract tag library from redux, solving performance issue with big tag libraries (over 1000 tags)
• Showing two lines of text in the entry title of the grid perspective, allowing a clear view of files with long file names.
• Allowing saving screenshots from some file viewer extensions in the desktop version.

The Kanban perspective​

The Kanban perspective was rewritten from scratch in this version and is again part of the PRO version. Basically it gives you the ability to represend any folder with sub folders as a Kanban board, where the sub folders are the columns and the files can represent tasks.

We have also added an import functionality for JSON exports of Trello boards, so you can easy migrate or try out existing Trello boards in TagSpaces. More on this functionality in the documentation of the Kanban perspective. Having your boards as simple files and folders on your PC, Mac or Android, makes your work not depend on the Internet and you a full owner of your data (if you have privacy concerns).

In general the Kanban perspective suits most for boards which are used mainly by one person, but you can of course share them with other by sharing the Kanban folder with your favorite sharing service (e.g. Nextcloud, Dropbox, Google Drive). You can of also place this folder on a S3 object storage and connect it as location in the TagSpaces app of different user. This is how we currently use the Kanban perspective to coordinate the development of TagSpaces.

TagSpaces Links​

In order to increase the compatibility with existing applications we have changed the prefix of the TagSpaces links (aka tslinks) from ts:? to ts://?. Links created with previous version of the app will of course be further supported.

Beside this, in this version you can paste a tslink directly in the search field of the app, hitting the enter key will open the folder, file or location to which the link points.

More on the linking concept can be found in the docs.

New themes and support for systems' dark mode​

We have added some new light and dark user interface themes in the application. The themes can be changed in the settings of the app. There, you can also select if the app should respect on start the dark mode setting of your operating system.

The following image carousel shows screenshots of the different UI themes.

Changes in the file creation dialog​

A new text field was added on the top of the file creation dialog, showing the automatically generated file name. The text is preselected, so you can easy change it, to what ever you need. This is especially useful for the Kanban perspective where you create this way new cards. Bellow of this text field you will see the path where this file will be created. The path defaults in most of the cases to the current folder, but when there is no opened location, the dialog will create the file in the root folder of the first location in your location manager.

App history navigation (beta)​

In this version we introduce the ability to navigate on the app's history. We have added two buttons, a go back-button for going to the last opened file, folder or location and a go forward-button for reverting the go-back action, so you should be navigation to the places where you have been before clicking on the go back button. A go back button is useful if you have clicked on an internal TagSpaces link or when you have switched to a folder or location in the location manager. In these cases the go back button will bring you back to the previous place.

Every time a folder, file or location is opened an entry in the app's history is written. These buttons are helping the navigation in the app's history.

Various Improvements​

• Now all the markdown rendering is happens thanks to the same powerfull Milkdown framework which we use in the markdown editor extension.
• The image viewer was extended to show the width and height of the currently viewed image and some more EXIF data points from JPG files.
• We have fixed some user interface glitches in the file types area in the settings.
• The loading of the default location is now skipped while opening TagSpaces links (ts:?..).
• The thumbnail generation for markdown and mhtml files was disabled, since it does not have any practical use.
• The name of the currently opened file is displayed now in the window title.

Plans for the next major release​

We plan a huge revamp of the search user experience and the support for ts:// links as protocol in the operating systems.

Connecting S3 buckets and web version available in TagSpaces Lite​

Maybe the most important change in this version is the making of two major PRO features, available in the free version. The first one is the ability to connect S3 compatible storage (e.g. AWS S3 or Wasabi buckets) as locations. Now the Lite version features this functionality and TagSpaces can be used as a file manager and browser for the S3 buckets.

The second major change is making the web version of the application fully open source. So now there is free web based package of TagSpaces Lite, which can be hosted on a simple web server e.g. a NAS system or from S3 bucket. This way you can open TagSpaces in any common web browser and from different devices including Android and iOS mobile phones and access files located on S3 buckets.

Supporting multiple windows​

Since this version many windows from the same TagSpaces instance can be opened simultaneously. This allows you to open different folders and files at same the same time. So you edit you todo list as markdown file and listen to your favorite music played from another TagSpaces window.

A new window can be opened by a click on the TagSpaces' logo in the upper left corner of the application. Alternatively you can open in a new window every document displayed in the preview area by a click on the button marked in the next screenshot.

Introducing the quick access area​

We created a new major area in the app aiming to allow the users access their files and folders more easily. We call this area "Quick access" and it can be opened by clicking the button near the button for opening the tag library in the bottom left part of the app.

The area contains the following list:

• Stored search queries - already introduced in version 4
• Bookmarks - new in version 5, described bellow
• Recently opened files - new in version 5, described bellow
• Recently edited files - new in version 5, described bellow
• Recently opened folders - new in version 5, described bellow

Bookmarking for files and folders​

A long-awaited feature for the app, was the ability to create bookmarks. Now in version 5 you can create a bookmark for any file or folder, regardless if it is local on your pc or stored remotely on an S3 bucket. This can be achieved by clicking on the button highlighted in the next screenshot.

Once you have created a bookmark, you can go to the quick access area and open the bookmarks list. A click on the bookmark will open in the file or the folder in the preview area. Hovering the bookmarks icon will show a tooltip containing the path to the bookmarked entry the date of the bookmark creation. You can also delete the bookmark by clicking the button with the minus icon on the right.

Recently used files and folders​

Until version 5 the app was not keeping track of the files and folders which have been opened in the application. We have added these features in the latest version, so now you can easily find files you have recently opened or edited. The app is also saving the folder for the folder properties were opened. The three lists can be found in the "Quick Access" area after the bookmarks section.

Configuration in the settings​

In the advanced tab of the application settings, you can adjust the amount of files/folders collected in the lists. You can also switch off the collection of this information, by selecting the "disabled"-entry in the dropdown.

Color gradients for folder background​

In the grid and list perspectives, you can now define an image or a color gradient as background for every folder. This can be achieved in the folder properties area.

We have added 4 predefined gradients, which can directly be used as background for folders. Just click on one of the them to apply it as background. You can always clear the background color/gradient via a click on the button with the strike through drop icon, available after the four sample gradients.

A click on the color or gradient in the "Folder background" section will open a color picker which can be used also as gradient editor.

Images as a wallpaper for folder​

Clicking the edit button in the "Background image" area will open a dialog where you can choose a picture from your computer as background image for the folder in the preview area. If you do not have suitable pictures or can use one of the included pictures.

If you do not want a given folder to have a background image, in this dialog you can remove it by a click on "Clear background image"-button.

In order make the choosing of a given picture as a background image, we have created the "Use as Background Image" menu entry to the context menu of images. With this feature you can add a background image with just to clicks.

Folder details and description in the main perspective​

Folder details​

In version 5 of the application, the grid perspective shows a folder details area after the perspective toolbar. This area contains the name of the folder, the count of the files and folders in it, a preview of the folder description (if available) and the folder thumbnail (if available). This option is available also in the list perspective and can be turned on and off the corresponding perspective settings.

Folder description​

In addition to the folder details, the list and grid perspective can show the folders description in full length.

Configuration​

Both new options can be configured separately for the list and grid perspective in the corresponding settings dialog.

Per folder perspective settings​

With this feature you can adjust very precisely how a given folder will be presented in the list or the grid perspectives. It is a useful addition to the ability for selected a perspective for every folder. For example if a folder contains photos, you may want to open it always with the grid perspective, hiding all sub folders, showing the folder details on the top and displaying large photo previews. On the contrary if you have a folder containing word and excel documents, a list perspective with a small file preview and showing the sub folders may make more sense.

These options can be configured in the perspectives settings dialog, which can be accessed by clicking on the button marked in the previous screenshot. This dialog has two buttons for confirming the changes:

• The first one called Set as default will persist the setting in general way, valid for any folder opened in this perspective (except the folders for which there a custom setting).
• The second one Set for this folder will make the setting valid only for the current folder

Once you have created custom perspective settings for a folder, you may want to remove them. This can be achieved with the Reset custom settings-button, available in the upper part of the previous screenshot.

Experimental WebDAV support​

We added a initial experimental support for connecting folders from a WebDAV servers as locations in TagSpaces.

Some other changes​

Here is a list of the most important other features and improvement, which have made it in this release:

• Added the ability to open geo-tags in online map service like OpenStreetMap

• Added button for opening the parent folder of the currently opened file in perspective area of the app. This is useful if you have opened the file from search results or from a shared link and you want to open the parent folder of this file.

• Added a dropdown in the search bar for a quick access of the saved search queries

• Enabled preview of images in AVIF file format
• Made the number of the selected files visible in the drag layer
• Redesigning the entry properties area
• Optimizing the dialog for creating and editing locations
• Added a set of image to be used as thumbnails and icons for folders. We have thankfully used icons provided by illlustrations.co

Changes under the hood.​

• The user interface of the app was migrated to Material UI version 5, offering a lot of new possibilities and making the source code of the app more future proof.
• The version of the underlying Electron package was also update to a newer one.
• Switching back from yarn to npm for various reasons.

A detailed article about using TagSpaces with Syncthing was published recently on Medium. It describes in detail how you can sync continuously tagged files and folders with the help of Syncthing program across multiple devices.

We recently released version 4.0 of TagSpaces. This is a major release containing many improvements of the user interface and some big changes under the hood of the app. For the desktop app we have decoupled the processes for search index generation and thumbnail creation for images from the main app. Now they run as separate processes, which makes the main user interface run more smoothly. For the image thumbnail generation (for e.g. JPG, PNG, GIF or SVG files), we now use the native sharp library, which is blazing fast and brings enormous performance gains. We have redesigned how the left sidebar area of the application behaves, unifying much of differences between the mobile and desktop mode of the application. Furthermore the icons for the buttons for navigating to the next and the previous files were exchanged with down and up arrows.

Improvements in the search​

Another major change in this release was the redesign of the user experience for the search. We moved the search area out of the left panel, where it was not always visible. Now, if you need the search, it easily accessible via the search icon placed in the upper-left part of the central area of the app. Here the button is always visible, even in the mobile mode for Android.

We simplified the search area, by separating the advanced search in a dedicated pop-over, which can be opened by clicking the button with the sliders on the right to the search button.

To search for specific tags, you are now able to enter them directly in the main search input box. So by entering this jpg +tag1 -tag2 in the search query, you will get file containing jpg in their names, having the tag tag1 and not having tag2. Placing | in front of tag will handled as an inclusive logical "or". For example the query: |tag1 |tag2 will find files and folder having one of the tags or both of them.

As seen in the following screenshot, opening the advanced search will show the tags from the search query in their appropriate places.

Stored search queries​

In version 4 we improved the newly introduced stored searches. While the creation and the changing of the stored searches have remained in the advanced search area, a clear list of all stored search queries is provided in the left area of the app. Here you can directly select such stored queries and execute them on the current location.

Export and import search queries​

In the three dot menu of the stored search are you will find menu entries with which you can export and import search queries. The file format of the export is JSON, which can be opened and edited with any modern text editor. In the text editors you can fine-tune the search queries and distribute them to another TagSpaces installations for you or your colleagues.

Due to the fact the search queries have unique IDs, TagSpaces can recognize if the query is already imported so you can skip the re-import or import the newer version of it. An example export can be found in the documentation of the project.

Linking files and folders​

One long awaited functionality is the ability to create links between files managed in TagSpaces, so you can navigate from one file to another. This is possible in version 4, you can use the description field of any file or folder to create links to other files and folders. If you are using markdown for your notes you can place the same kind of links in content of the file.

The context menus of every file and folder in the default perspective now have the menu entry Copy Sharing Link, which will generate the sharing link and copy it to the clipboard. This link can be used for creating links to this file inside TagSpaces.

You can find more about how linking works on a dedicated place in our documentation.

Redesign of the create file dialog​

The create new file dialog was redesigned by adding more explanation to the purpose of every file type you can create here.

Supporting diagrams in the markdown editor​

In version 3.11 we have added a new markdown editor based the Milkdown framework. Luckily they have developed another great plugin for creating diagrams. For more details, you can see the website of the Mermaid project, used in this new plugin. A great advantage of the Mermaid project is the ability to define simple diagrams with human-readable text, making this ideal for embedding in Markdown files.

Add many tags at once in the tagging dialog​

Now it is possible to add many tags at once, separated by commas, in the dialog for tagging multiple files.

Added MGRS encoding for the geo tags​

MGRS is another standard similar to Pluscodes (already supported by TagSpaces) for geo-coding coordinates of places from our planet.

You can switch to this geo-coding format in the advanced section of the application's settings, as shown in the next screenshot.

The following screenshot shows the geo-tagging dialog, with a MGRS geo tag of a locations somewhere in London.

Using ISO 8601 for representing datetime tags​

With this version we decided to align the representation of tags for date and time to the international ISO 8601 standard. So now we separate the date from time with a big T instead of ~ (e.g. 20211105~113021 is now 20211105T113021). The main issue with the ~ was that when used in file name tags, it was wrongly interpreted on some file systems or cloud providers. So, in the end, this representation is more versatile and widely accepted, due to being part of the standard.

Human readable JSON exports​

All the JSON exports are now formatted with 2 chars intend. This makes the files readable without further reformatting and allows the creation of configuration files for TagSpaces with simple copy and paste from the exports.

Recently I took a picture of my son with the iPad. The photo came out at the whooping 15 MB, 5 MB for the picture and 10 MB for the movie, which was automatically created before the actual taking of the photo. I suspect that the storage space taken after pressing the shutter button on the latest iPhone is even larger. The cheapest iCloud plan of 50 GB of space costs you ca. 1 € per month (Google's current price is 2 € per month for 100 GB). It doesn’t look like much, but with the size of the photos and especially with 4k videos you can easily reach the 50 GB, and then you will need the next plan. Once you have so much data on a cloud system you may encounter vendor locking issues when trying to move your files from the cloud service.

The main point is not the price but the fact that my photos will be stored in the Cloud, which as we all know is a fancy word for someone else’s computers, with his terms of use and limitations... In addition, in the Apple/iOS case, the most frustrating thing for me is that the photos are hidden in some cryptic file structure, which can be edited only with the Apple's Photo app. Not that I don't like how the Photos app presents my pictures, but the lack of obvious alternative for doing this on a Mac is still an issue.

Getting the photos from my smartphone​

In general, I take a lot of photos. Especially of my kids, trying to capture how they grow up in front of my eyes. During the years I‘ve had a lot of cameras, and I still own a DSLR, but my main source of photos now is my smartphone. Since I am not using a Cloud sync service, I am copying on a regular basis the photos from the phone to my computer because I want to store all the photos I shoot on my phone.

On Android, which is the operating system of my current smartphone, the photos are saved in the internal memory of the phone (or on a SD-card) in a path which usually looks like this /storage/emulatated/0/DCIM. Once connected to my Linux laptop it looks like this:

My recent photos are placed automatically by the Camera app in the Camera folder. So I simply take this folder and rename it to Camera_20210929 where the last number represent the current date. Now I am copying this folder to the Photos folder on my PC. By renaming the folder, I know which photos I have already copied and when I have done this. Don't worry the Camera folder will be re-created as soon as you make you next photos. And at least the Samsung Photo app is clever enough to recognize that this folder was renamed so it will show the photos from all the Camera_xxxxxxxx folders.

Organizing the photos on my PC​

In the Photos folder on my PC the first level of sub folders represent the years. The names of the next level of folders contain basic information for the photos in there. For example 20210517 Birthday Party XY S10 DE or 20210814 Hiking Alps Tirol S10 AT, where the first 8 digits represent the date (or the last date) when the photos were taken. The next few words are short description of the event or the place, then I usually put the name of the camera/phone with which the photos are taken. Optionally, at the end, I put two characters which are the code of the country where the photos were taken.

So after coping the folder with the last photos from my phone, I open this folder with a regular file manager and separate photos from different events in separate folders. After I am done with this, I rename the folder from Camera_20210929 to something like 20210929 S10 Misc. The misc in the name tells me that this folder contains miscellaneous images, since the grouped photos are already moved out of there.

Putting the current date in ISO format (e.g. 20210930 for 30th of September 2021) in the front of the folder name has a practical reason. This way my folders will be chronologically sorted once they are opened in a file manager (e.g. Windows Explorer or Mac Finder), where the default sorting is usually by name.

So for now everything looks pretty standard, at least on Ubuntu and macOS. On Windows you may get at least some preview of the images which are inside the folders.

Preparing the photos in TagSpaces​

From here, I continue in the desktop application TagSpaces Lite. This is a free software initially started by me, with the main purpose to help the organization of files and folders on Windows, macOS, Linux and Android.

The folder containing my photos is connected in TagSpaces with the options to store the tags in the file name. TagSpaces offers two options for tagging files: by adding the tags in the file name and by using a helper file, which we call sidecar files. These files are in JSON format and are stored along the main file in .ts sub folder. For photos I prefer to store the tags in the name of the file, because this is a more robust way of tagging which "survives" moving the file or syncing it with services like Dropbox. So when I tag IMAGE_4265.JPG with the tags sunset and bestshot it will be renamed to IMAGE_4265[sunset bestshot].JPG. One more advantage is that the tags are usable even outside of TagSpaces. Just use the built-in search of your operating system to find files tagged this way. The file tagging method can be specified per location in the location properties dialog, shown in the next screenshot.

Generate photo thumbnails​

Once the photos are split into folders, I open them in TagSpaces and the app generates thumbnails (small image previews) from the photos, so I can easily preview them the next time I open this folder. Depending on how many images I have in a given folder and how big these images are, the process of thumbnail generation can take some time. I usually do not have folders with more than 500 images, so the time for the thumbnail generation on my laptop is acceptable (< 30 sec).

Choose thumbnail for a folder​

After the thumbnails are generated, I choose one of them as a thumbnail for the currently opened folder. This is done by opening the context menu with a right click of the selected file and choosing "Use as thumbnails for the current folder" from there.

Manually tag and add descriptions​

Now is the time to tag some of the photos. This is, of course, an optional step, where I do not spend too much time. In general, I try to find the best images in the folder and add the tag favorite or bestshot. If I find a special shots of my kids, I tag those photos with a tag referring to the kid's name. This way I am able to find the best shots of my children for a given year very easy with the search functionality of the application.

The tagging can be done in different ways. In general I use the drag and drop functionality as seen in the following screenshot, where I have selected three photos and I am dragging a tag over the selection. For touch screens there is a tagging dialog, which can be opened by clicking the button with a tag from the toolbar (shown in the same screenshot).

For some special images, might be worth adding a description. This can be done in the file properties area of the app. Basic markdown is supported in the description of the files and folders there.

Extract geo coordinates from JPGs​

I have turned on the storing of the current geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) as EXIF/IPTC data in the JPG files on my phone. This allows me to extract these coordinates later and present them nicely in TagSpaces PRO. The PRO version of the app features the Perspectives, which allows me to present the files in a folder with different view depending on the use-case.

So now is the time to open the folder in the Mapique perspective, dedicated to visualize geo tagged files and folders on a map. This can be done by clicking the button marked with (1) in the following screenshot. Clicking on button marked with (2) will start the extraction of the geo coordinates.

The extraction takes some time depending on how many JPG files you have in the folder. After it finishes, the map will be automatically focused to the place where the photos are taken. All the photos with geo coordinates are now tagged with a geotag and represented as small markers on the map. Clicking on a given marker will open a small preview of the image.

Browse the photo folder in different perspectives​

As a result of the steps so far, now when I navigate to the parent folder, which in my case is 2021, I will see all the sub folders with previews, so I can easily recognize their content and have a nice overview of my photos taken so far in the year 2021.

The geotagged folder will have a small tag with a marker icon, as seen in the screenshot. Having those tags in place, when I switch again to the Mapique perspective I will get a map presenting the places where I have taken the photos.

Another feature of the Mapique perspective is the additional setup of map tile servers, which will render the map with different styles. The styles can be switched with the button emphasized on the next screenshot. Here we see a topographic map which is generously provided by opentopomap.org and openstreetmap.org.

You can navigate to any sub-folder by clicking on Navigate to Folder button in the popup. Or you use the folder list on left, which contains all the sub-folders and not only the geotagged ones.

Backup of the photos on a NAS (Network-attached storage)​

The SSD of my laptop is unfortunately not of infinite size, so I was forced to hold only photos from the current year and the previous two years on my laptop. Images from the other years are stored on my NAS. From time to time, during the year, I am syncing the folders containing the photos from the current year to the NAS system, so I have a backup copy of the already organized folders. Speaking for the NAS, mine is of a popular NAS brand, containing two hard-disks in RAID 1 mode, so nothing fancy.

Sharing my photos with TagSpaces Web Pro​

Besides holding my entire photo collection, my NAS has another function. It runs a MinIO service in a Docker container and hosts an installation of TagSpaces Pro Web, which is the web based version of TagSpaces. MinIO is a service which can display folders as AWS S3 compatible object storage. As such they can be connected in TagSpaces Pro Web. So my main photo folder containing the folders with all the years so far is displayed here, which makes it easy to browse on my mobile phone and tablet.

With the combination of TagSpaces’ organization of files and NAS storage, I have something similar to Google Drive or Apple’s iCloud but running entirely on my hardware with my software and hosting all the files I need for free. No files of mine are hosted on other proprietary networks and I am in complete control of my own content.

Since my photo folder is reaching 1.5 TB, I would be charged by Google or Apple with 9.99 € per month if I want to host my files on their cloud services. My NAS and my DSL connection might have different SLAs compared with the Big Tech but that’s not the point if you really want to own your files, now is it?

The NAS and the integrated hard drives have, of course, their price. We should also not ignore the the time I invest for keeping the things there running.

Long-term archiving on M-DISC Blue-rays​

Since my NAS is always on and connected to the Internet, it should not be used as a backup system. Ten years ago it was enough to burn my photos on CDs or DVDs but this is not feasible anymore due to the size of my yearly photos folder. So I started to search an alternative for my long-term backup strategy.

I came upon the M-DISC technology, which is basically creating special Blu-ray discs. Here the data layer is made from a material, which according to the producer can hold the data for up to 1000 years. This sounded very promising, so I bought an external, M-DISC certified Blu-ray burner, because the only BD-device at home was in my son's Play Station. Writable media are available in 25, 50 and 100 GB. I usually take the 50 GB, since the idea of a potential loss of 100 GB, regardless of the reasons, scares me. The good news is that the M-DISC can be read by almost every Blu-ray device, the bad news is that I do not know if there will be a working Blu-ray reader in let's say 20 years.

In conclusion​

The best thing of using files and not external services is that my photo folders are self-contained, carrying all the information like tags, description, geo-coordinates and thumbnails. I can just copy any folder, from a given year or just from some "events" put it on a USB stick or sync it with e.g. Nextcloud or Dropbox and I will have my organized and enhanced photos on another computer. And, if the other computer has TagSpaces installed I will have the same experience with my photos there.

If TagSpaces is not on the other computer, I will "just" have a backup of my sorted in folders original images and not some downscaled versions (optimized for viewing on mobile devices or with removed EXIF data), which I can still open with the built-in image viewer in operating system of the other computer. All this, without the need of exporting and importing files from online services or migrating databases with metadata.

Please let me know what you think about my photo managing routines. I am open for improvements and other suggestions.

My next article will explain, how I build my personal Dropbox alternative and organize my notes, bookmarks and general stuff found on the Internet, so stay tuned for a follow up.

WYSIWYG Markdown editor​

WYSIWYG stays for what you see is what you get and this describes our new markdown editor best, where you do not have to know anything about Markdown, but you can still use its power.

The new editor is based on the popular Milkdown framework and offers a lot of features such as:

• WYSIWYG Markdown editing
• support math expressions such as
• embedding images, also as data URLs
• support for emojis 🍒
• support for tables
• simple text formatting and headers
• copy and paste markdown text

You can test it live here.

TIP: Just type / on a new line to get a menu showing all available markdown elements such as headings, bullet lists, images, quotes or tables.

Show sub-folders in the Mapique perspective​

In general, not all folders have a geo tag but the Mapique perspective shows only files and folder which have such tags. This is kind of problematic if you are trying to navigate through a tree of folders. That's why we have added a new button in the main toolbar of the Mapique perspective, which turning an overlay containing all sub folders of the current folder on and off. Once turned on, the user can seamlessly navigate deep in a folder tree (even if there are not geo tags). The following video shows this process.

Location based tag group​

Location tag groups and tags are very useful for sharing tags with other users who are working on the same files.

To activate this feature, you have to open the advanced tab of the settings and click on the checkbox marked on the following screenshot.

After the activation, a new dropdown called Store Tag Group in will appear in the dialog for creating tag groups.

Technically, the tags in this tag group will be saved in a file located in the .ts folder of the current location. This way, these tags will "travel" with the location by copying the location's folder to a new place, USB stick or just syncing it with Dropbox.

Ignore patterns for locations​

This feature is useful if your location has large folders containing many files with which you are not working and would like to be ignored by the application's search function. This is available in the advanced area of the location's properties. Here you have the ability to add and remove ignore patterns for folders.

Once a given pattern is added and the location is reloaded, all the matching folders will be displayed grayed-out as visible on the following screenshot.

Set file tagging method per location​

Choosing the tagging method for all locations as once was limiting and kind of inconvenient. Some locations contain files which do not have to be renamed for various reasons and here the sidecar tagging was the recommended way. On the other hand, there are locations with files where the renaming of the file is not problematic and is even wanted since it sticks the tags to file more robustly. That's why we have introduced in this release the ability to set the tagging method per location. This setting is available in the advanced area of the location's properties.

Duplicate files​

With this feature, you will be able to easily create new documents based on an old one. Just right click a file in the default perspective and choose "Duplicate file", to create a copy of the file. The new file can be easily separated from the original, since it will have the tags: "copy" and e.g. "20210831T1230". The second tag represents the date and time of the duplication.

Apply to tags from the tag library to selected files​

This is an additional method for adding tags to selected files or folders. The main advantage here is that doing so does not require a drag and drop action, which is needed on mobile devices or by using TagSpaces on touch screens, where the drag and drop is generally not available.

Re-order tag groups and tags with drag and drop​

And last but least, there are some usability improvements for managing the tag library and the tag. As seen in the following video, you can now change the order of the tag groups in the tag library with simple drag and drop. On top of that you can change the order of the tags in the tag group also with drag and drop.

Re-order tag on files with drag and drop​

The following video shows the ability to change the order of the tags on tagged file or folder.

NOTE: If you have a file tagged with a combination of sidecar and file name tags, the sidecar tags will always stay in the first place.

• Search improvements
• Shareable links
• Export folder content and search results as CSV
• Viewer for CSV, XLSX and ODS files
• Geo tagging improvements
• Usability improvements
• Multi-factor authentication

Search improvements​

The search area of the app is the one which got a lot improvements in this release. But here is definitely more to come we are planing a bigger changes in the search user experience in the upcoming versions.

Saved searches​

pro

The save button from the screenshot above, open a dialog where you can give name to search you want to save. The saving functionality itself just takes all the parameters from the search area and saves them with the name given in the dialog.

There is also an edit button with which you can open a dialog where you can change the name of the query or delete it.

Info: Search queries are independent from the locations, so they can be used on any location

Strict and semi-strict search​

Until this version TagSpaces was only searching with a hardcoded fussiness allowing to find a broader amount of relevant files. So if your are searching for 'books' TagSpaces will deliver also files containing 'boock' or 'booc' in the file names. There are many use cases where more precise results are needed so we decided to introduce the strict and semi-strict search modes. In strict mode the search will deliver results which are exact match to the search query including the case of the letters there. Semi-strict mode is exactly the same but case-insensitive.

Index validity duration​

This setting will allow you to specify different index validity duration for every location. The default value for all locations is 10 minutes. After this period expires and you start a new search, TagSpaces will re-index the location in order to have relevant results. Having a longer validation duration time makes sense if you have location with many files which do not change very ofter (e.g. you Photo library), or location placed on networks drives where the creation of the index could be slower. The number in this setting represents minutes.

In order to show this setting you have to click on the Advanced Mode button of the location's properties dialog, as seen in the next screenshot.

Note: this setting can be specified also in the extconfig.js

Shareable links​

Since this version TagSpaces offers two options for sharing. Both links are available in the entry properties area:

Internal sharing​

The first one which was introduced in version 3.8 is called "Link for internal sharing", available in the left part of the previous screenshot. It is intended for sharing links to files anf folders with other TagSpaces users. Those links will work on locations which are synced with tools such Dropbox, Google Drive or Nextcloud. Other important requirement is that those location should have the same location id. The location id can be changed in the advanced settings of the location properties.

Once copied to the clipboard with the COPY-button, the links can be shared for example per email or via messenger. The person with which you share the link needs TagSpaces in order to open it. She just needs to open the three-dot menu of the location area and click on the Open Link, as showed in the next screenshot.

Sharing for downloading​

pro

• A dropdown where you can select the adjust the validity duration of the link. Available options are: 15 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day, 3 days and 1 week
• A Generate & Copy-button which will generate the link and copy it to the clipboard
• And a text field where the link is places after the generation

The generated link can be shared to anyone so he/she can start downloading the file.

Export folder content and search results as CSV​

pro

The exported file contains the following columns:

• name - name of the entry
• is file - true if the entry is a file, false if it is folder
• file extension - only for files
• tags - a semicolon separated list of tags
• size - in bytes
• last modified date - milliseconds since 1970/01/01:
• full path -
• description - the entry description in markdown format

You can see how such exported CSV file looks like in the screenshot of the next section.

Viewer for CSV, XLSX and ODS files​

Since version 3.10 TagSpaces ships a simplified viewer for basic spreadsheet file formats such as CSV, XLSX and ODS. This means that you can preview files created with applications such as Microsoft® Excel® or LibreOffice. The preview is really very basic for now, showing only the first sheet of multi sheet documents. Under the hood this extension uses the popular SheetJS javascript library.

Note: The support for spreadsheet files is not added automatically for old installation so you have to add these files format in the File Types of application settings dialog.

Geo tagging improvements​

For this version we spend a lot of effort to improve the geotagging experience in TagSpaces and especially in the Mapique perspective.

Configure OpenStreetMap tile servers in the settings​

TagSpaces uses OpenStreetMap based maps to represent maps in the geotagging capabilities of the application. With this version we added a way to add custom OpenStreetMap compatible map tile server. On the OpenStreetMap wiki there is a list of common map server.

Note: Please follow policies and the terms of usage of any given map service provider!

With this functionality you can add your own map tile server, in case you want to have completely Internet independent geo-tagging.

You can switch through the all map tile servers entered in the settings, by clicking the button selected on the next screenshot.

Tip: Users who do not want that TagSpaces is contacting any map tile server when opening the properties of geo-tagged file or folder, can now simply remove the default servers from the list.

Input fields for entering lat and long in the geo tagging dialog​

We extended the geo-tag editing dialog with an advanced mode. Once turned on, with the Advanced mode-button located in the bottom left part of the dialog, two new text fields appear for entering the Latitude and Longitude of the desired places on the Earth.

The simple mode of the geotagging dialog can be turned back by clicking Simple mode-button.

New 'smart' icon as pin for files and folder​

We have re-designed the pin icons in the Mapique perspective. Now with the help of a little pictogram you can directly recognize if the pin is for file or for a folder. The little balkan in the center of the icon represent the first tag of the file or the folder with its color. This will allow you to visually recognize the tagged files and folders. In the following screenshot for example, every pin is a geo-tagged file representing one person. The year of birth is the first tag. And the years are organized in decades with different colors. So now with help of the colored pins on the map you can get a first impression about the age distribution of those people and maybe build some kind of cluster.

Usability improvements​

In this release we have done many improvements in the user experience, the most important once are explained bellow.

Changing the order of locations with drag and drop​

You can simply change the order of the locations in the location's area with drag and drop. Just grab the title of the location and move it up or down to change its order in the location's list.

Simplified selection of thumbnail for folders​

Setting of thumbnails for folders is available since a long time in TagSpaces. But the despite of the fact the default way very flexible it is not straight forward and requires many steps. The user have to open the folder properties, navigate to the very bottom, click a button to open a dialog where the desired image can be selected as a thumbnail and confirm the whole thing. Now, we have significantly simplified this process. We added "Use as thumbnail for current folder"-menu items in the file's context menu and "Use as thumbnail for parent folder" in the context for folders. Once you open a folder and the app generates thumbnails for the files in it, you can simply choose which thumbnail represents best the content of this folder and choose it as thumbnail for it.

Multi-factor authentication​

The Enterprise version deployed with AWS Amplify can now be configured to use MFA (multi-factor authentication). This means that user will be prompted in addition to standard user name and password, for a pin which will be send per SMS or Email. A TOTP (time-based one-time password) authentication process is also supported. For its activation a token app such as Google Authenticator should be used. The app is needed later for every login.

Conclusion​

So I think this is for now, a detailed list with the changes in this release can be found in the what's new page.