Organize Your Files with Labels

The Labels feature in Mac OS X offers an easy way to visually identify items, but this simple tool can also help you organize and find the files and projects on your hard drive, too. I use labels to help group the different projects I am working on.

First, you have to assign labels to your files and folders. To do this, just Control-click or Right-click an item, and then choose the appropriate color from the contextual menu.

You can assign labels from contextual menus.

After you assign the same color to the files and folders in a project, you can use Spotlightis Smart Folder feature to view the items in the same window, even if they are in different locations on your hard drive. If you arenit sure how to create Smart Folders, check out this Quick Tip.

This Smart Folder finds files by label color and date.

I have a Smart Folder, for example, that looks for every item that has been opened in the last two weeks and is labeled orange. I always try to wait two weeks between using a specific color for a project, that way I only see my current files, and not items that are associated with older projects.