Organize Your Home Inventory and Collections with Tags

Introduction

We believe Everspruce is the best iPhone inventory app and Android inventory app, and one of the reasons why is our humble tag feature. In this blog post, we’ll explore how tags can take your home inventory management to the next level, allowing you to group, filter, and search for your items with ease. Get ready to discover the greatness of tags in the Everspruce Home Inventory App!

A video walkthrough of how to use tags

What are tags?

Tags are an organizing tool used in digital content management to help users group and filter information. They work by assigning one or more keywords or labels to a piece of content to make it easier to find and organize. For example, in the Everspruce Home Inventory App, you can assign a tag called “electronics” to items like iPad, iPhone, computer, stereo, or headphones. Or you could assign a tag called “kitchenware” to your kitchen items – including your blender, coffee maker, and waffle iron. Tagging items enables you to quickly identify all the items that belong to those tags independent of the item’s location.

It’s important to note that tags are more powerful than categories and folders, although they all serve similar purposes. Categories are broad groupings that items can be assigned to, while folders are used to organize items hierarchically. In contrast, tags offer a more flexible and dynamic way to categorize content, as multiple tags can be assigned to a single item, and those tags can be used to group items across different locations.

Tags are widely used in other contexts beyond content management as well, such as email and social media. In email, tags are often called labels and are used to categorize messages in Gmail, for example. Social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter use tags as hashtags to make it easier to find and follow specific topics or themes. By using tags in these contexts, users can quickly sort and filter through large amounts of information to find what they’re looking for.

What home inventory scenarios are useful for tags?

Your home inventory can likely greatly benefit from tags. Here are some examples where tags can improve your home organization:

Holiday decorations: If you have as many holiday decorations as I do, your holiday decorations don’t usually fit into a single box or location. By tagging your holiday decorations with specific holiday tags (e.g., “Halloween”, “Christmas”, etc.), you can instantly find all the decorations for that holiday – regardless of what box or location they are in.
Collections: Your hobbies or collections of items are another great use for tags. You can keep it simple by leveraging a tag called “cards” for your card collection or “stamps” for your stamp collection. You could also get more sophisticated with multiple types of tags. For example, tags for your handbag collection could include the overall category tag “handbag”, include brand tags (e.g., “Chanel”, “Hermes”, etc.), and even color tags (e.g., “black”, “tan”, “white”, etc.) to break down your collection further. This would enable you to go to search and select tags “handbag”, “Chanel”, and “white” to see exactly which handbags you have that meet that criteria. And Everspruce tells you exactly where each item is located so you don’t have to waste time hunting for the one you are looking for.
Temporary moments: Tags can be useful for temporary moments too. So for example, if you’re thinking of doing a garage sale, you can go through your entire home inventory and tag those items you want to sell with a “sale” tag. Once you’re done identifying those items you can go to search and filter down to the “sale” tag to see everything you need to get ready.
Types of items: We’ve seen users tag their jewelry, outdoor gear, camping items, water sports, board games, tools, makeup, and more! The possibilities are endless!

Creating tags in the Everspruce Home Inventory App

Here’s how to create your first tag in Everspruce:

Tags need items, so if you haven’t created an item yet – start there.
Tap on the item to go to the item detail page.
Tap on the + button next to the Tags name below the item photo.
Tap on “Create new tag”.
Type in a tag name and tap “OK”.
Now notice the checkbox to the right of the tag – this item is now associated with the tag you just created.

Editing and deleting tags in the Everspruce Home Inventory App

To edit or delete a tag in your home inventory, follow these steps:

Tap on Home in the lower left corner of the app.
Tap on “Edit tags”.
Swipe left on the tag you want to edit or delete.
You will now see an “Edit” and “Delete” button.
- Tap on “Edit” to change the name of that tag. Note that changing the name of the tag does not change any of its relationships to items – those will remain intact.
- Tap on “Delete” to delete the tag and all relationships that that tag has with other items.

Adding or removing multiple tags

Everspruce also enables you to add or delete tags from multiple items at the same time, helping you save valuable time and manual effort.

Using tags to find items in the Everspruce Home Inventory App

There are three main ways users can use tags to find items in the Everspruce Home Inventory App:

Via the Home Page

Navigate to the Home page.
Tap on Items near the top.
From there, you have two options:
- Tap on “Edit tags” near the top right.
  - Tap on a tag that you want to filter down to.
  - Tap on the Back button in the upper left.
  - Now all the items that have that tag are visible and all other items are filtered out.
- Tap on individual tags in the tag row.
  - Now all the items that have that tag are visible and all other items are filtered out.
  - Note: Tapping multiple tags creates an AND query and only items will show that have all of the tags selected. So for example, if you tapped on tag A and tag B then Everspruce would filter down to those items that have both tag A and tag B. If you didn’t have any items that had both tag A and tag B, then Everspruce wouldn’t show any items at all.

Via the Search Page

Navigate to the Search page.
You have two options on Search:
- Tap on “Edit tags”.
  - Tap on the + button next to a tag to filter down to items that have that tag. Note: Combining tags makes an AND for the filter criteria. So if you tap the + button next to tag A that matches items 1, 2, and 3, and you also tap on tag B which is associated to items 4, 5, and 6, you won’t see any results because there are no items that have both tag A and tag B associated with it.
- Tap on individual tags in the tag row.
  - Now all the items that have that tag are visible and all other items are filtered out.
  - As noted above, tapping multiple tags creates an AND query and only items that have all the tags will be displayed and all other items will be filtered out.

Via an Area or Box Detail Page

Navigate to an Area or Box that contains items with tags.
Take a look at the tag row. These tags are all the tags associated with all the items in this Area or Box.
Now tap on individual tags in the tag row. Now all the items that have that tag are visible and all other items are filtered out.
- As noted above, tapping multiple tags creates an AND query and only items that have all the tags will be displayed and all other items will be filtered out.

Tips for using tags effectively

Here’s some tips to use tags effectively:

Stay consistent: It won’t do you any good if you have tags called “electronic” and “electronics” – pick one version and stick with it.
Leverage multiple tags where it makes sense: Items can belong to multiple tags – either within the same categorization structure (e.g., my handbag example above which included category, brand, and color), or by unrelated attributes. For example, a camping radio could have a tag for “electronics” and “camping”. When I want to find all my electronics I can use the tag “electronics” and when I want to find all my camping items I can use the tag “camping”. Tags are incredibly flexible – tailor your tags to how you like to search and filter for items.
Avoid tags that represent locations if possible: We definitely have users that use tags as locations, but Everspruce already has item location built in to the app, so most users should avoid using tags to represent locations because the moment you move an item, your tag is now out of date.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Everspruce Home Inventory App’s tag feature is a powerful and flexible way to group, filter, and search for home inventory items across different locations with ease. Using tags effectively can lead to more efficient home organization, especially for situations like storing holiday decorations, managing your collections, and temporary moments like garage sales or moving. Don’t waste any more time searching for your items – try the Everspruce Home Inventory App with tags today and start simplifying your life!

To continue learning more about the Everspruce Home Inventory App, check out how to use home inventory QR code labels.