Label Your Files With Color

On the Mac you can use color labels to mark files or folders you want to stick out, or simply mark them for any reason. Maybe you want certain files to stick out because you use them more often than others. This sounds very simple and that’s just what it is really. You will learn to like this method so much that when you are working on a Windows machine you would miss it enormously! Believe me this will happen to you too! ☺ This is one of innovations with which Apple distinguish themselves from the competition for many years now.
My first iMac ( 1998 ) had that functionality build in. So we are talking about nothing new here!
As a Windows user I did not miss this feature though. And the main reason was that I just did it in another way. A clumsy way really, lookin’ back at that period in time…
What you do not know, you can’t miss… right?
Now and again when working with one of my PC’s (yes I have more than one, to be precise; One stand alone Pentium 4 and a notebook Pentium 4) I have the feeling of missing the functionality of ‘marking’ my files and folders. One get used to do things a certain way I guess, and if this way of doing things is more intuitive, well you gonna miss it very soon in another environment!
In Windows I can’t mark files in any way, and that annoys me. I can’t distinguish one file from another in appearance. Yes I could use high caps… (right…) or use an exclamation mark to make the file go to the top when sorting on alphabet. But that’s about it, nothing more Windows can do to help me.
Lets say I have certain folder with a lot of files in it, and I want the files I use the most to appear important. So that when I look at the folder I see the most important files first. Common sense right?
With my Mac I can do just that. Normally I give these files a green label. I guess you all know the yellow marking pen you use to accentuate bits of text or words on paper, so it catches your eye immediately… the labeling method is kinda the same way.
On paper you can’t remove these accents though. On your Mac you can change whatever you want. Use a different label or remove it all together.
Another use of labeling I use very often is the labeling of downloaded music which I have or have not listened to yet.
When a certain track or album has been listened to; then I give it a green label. When I look at my music folder I see what I’ve listened to and what not. Very handy feature for a geek like me!
If I find a certain track or album worthless… well it gets a red color, so that I can throw it away at some point.
You could argue that I could simply throw it away immediately, well is a bit complicated… if I throw an album away while I have a complete discography of an artist it would make my collection incomplete. When marking red I know its not worth to listen to again.
We can also use the labels as an actual organizational tool!
By using the OS X Smart Folder feature, we can group files by the color of the label you chose. So for example, say you decided to mark all of your MP3's that you very much like with GREEN, you can then create a Smart Folder to automatically group all of these songs in one place. It then automatically updates whenever you label a new MP3 with that color. Nice!

Now lets create a Smart Folder to group all of files labeled with green into one folder.

1. Go to the Finder. In the menu bar at the very top of your screen, select File > New Smart Folder. A new Finder window will popup with no files inside.
2. Next we’ll be creating the “rule” that finds all the green-labeled files. In the upper-right corner of the new Finder window you will see a plus sign. Click on the plus sign to create a new rule.
3. You’ll see a couple of new drop-down items. Click on the first one that says “Kind” and select “Other…” from the bottom of the menu. You’ll be presented with numerous additional attributes you can use. We want to find the attribute called “File label” and select it. The select Okay.
4. The rule has now changed to let you pick the color label of your choice. In our example, we’ll select the green label. After selecting your label, your Mac will search all the files on your computer for any labeled with green and will then show you the results.
5. If you’d like, you can now save this Smart Folder by clicking on the Save button.