A Complete Guide to Using and Managing Tags in Microsoft OneNote

OneNote offers many ways to organize your notes. For example, you can organize the notes into notebooks, sections, and pages. Tags are one of the smart and efficient ways to organize your notes in OneNote. If you’ve come across tags in OneNote and wondering how to use tags in OneNote, this guide will be your savior.

This tutorial is based on the OneNote for Windows 10 version, which is different from OneNote 2016. The mobile versions of OneNote only support adding the task list tag. You can view other tags created from a computer, but they cannot be added on mobile apps. Likewise, mobile apps do not allow you to search for tags. However, the iPad version offers many predefined tags, and the same can be found using search.

Let’s start with using and managing tags in Microsoft OneNote.

What are tags in Microsoft OneNote

Tags work inside pages. So think of them as tiny databases to collect similar information from different pages. Within a page, you can tag a single line, an entire paragraph, or multiple paragraphs. Everything can be labeled. You can even add multiple tags to the same text.

Tags provide more structure to your notes. After adding data to your notes, you can tag them with tags based on the type of information and the action to be taken. The labels highlight the important elements of the rest of the notes. Unlike traditional labels, tags are searchable and sometimes even dynamic, like task list tags.

For example, if you learn new words by compiling notes in different sections and pages, you can tag the new words with the Definition tag. Later, when you want to review the new words, you don’t have to scroll through each page individually. Just search for the Definition tag and all the tagged words will appear. Cool, right?

When to use tags

Tags are handy for creating to-do lists, remembering important information on a page, highlighting important lines or marking definitions, and more. Use tags when you want to mark a similar type of data in different notes. For example, you can create a phone number label. So whenever you add a phone number to your notes, inserting the phone number will make it easy for you to find it when you need it.

You can, of course, find something using the search term. But for this you will need to remember something data related first. Take the case of a telephone number. Suppose you have added a phone number for a business. Now you don’t remember the name of the company. This is where tags come to our rescue. Look for the phone number tag and it will show all phone numbers. Tags provide an additional layer of organization while making it easy to find the right information quickly.

Pro tip: Google Keep supports labels. Find out what labels are in Google Keep Notes and how to use them to organize notes.

How to add tags to notes

Adding tags or tagging your notes is pretty straightforward. Place your cursor anywhere on the line or paragraph you want to tag. Go to the Home tab and you will find the drop-down list of tags with a task list tag appearing first. Click the To Do List tag if you want to add it to your note. Otherwise, click on the small down arrow and select the appropriate tag. You will find several pre-created tags such as Definitions, Remember for later, Important, etc. You can even create your custom tags as shown below.

As mentioned earlier, you can add multiple tags to a line or paragraph. Most of the tags will appear at the start of the line, while some will highlight your text, such as the Definition tag.

You can even use keyboard shortcuts to add tags. Use the shortcut Ctrl + 0 to add a task tag and the shortcut Ctrl + 1 to add an important tag. Likewise, use a combination of Ctrl and a number depending on the position of the tag in the list.

How to find beacons

To find tags, you need to use OneNote’s search feature. Click the search icon in the left sidebar of OneNote. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + F to open the search. When the search box appears, enter the name of the tag. I repeat, you have to type the name of the tag. So for task lists type to do and similarly for Definition tag type definition. Some tags will appear when you click on the search bar. Click on the label if it is available.

Once you hit the Enter key to search for the tag, you will see the related searches. Switch to the Tags tab if you are in pages. Additionally, OneNote can display search results for the current page. You can filter the data to search in the current section, current notebook, and all notebooks. To do this, click on the second box under the search bar. Click on the different pages under the Tags section to display the tagged notes. Your data tagged in a particular note will be highlighted.

How to remove tags

You can keep the tags in your notes for as long as you want. Once you’re done with a tagged note and you don’t want it to appear in search results, you can remove the tag.

To remove a tag, hover over the tagged text and go to the Home tab. Click the drop-down list of tags to display a list of tags. Click on the same tag you want to remove. The process of removing a tag is similar to adding it. You can also press Ctrl + 0 to remove any tag. Use the same shortcut if you want to remove multiple tags. If you’ve added multiple tags but only want to remove one tag, use whatever key combination you used to add that particular tag i.e. Ctrl + 1, Ctrl + 2, etc.

Point: Check other keyboard shortcuts that work with Microsoft OneNote.

How to create and use custom tags

If you don’t like OneNote’s tag offerings, you can create your own based on its purpose. To create a tag, click the small down arrow in the tag area. Select Create New Tag from the list.

A new sidebar will open on the right side. Enter a relevant name for your tag in the “Name this tag” field. Select the appropriate icon from the list. Click on the Create button.

When the tag is created, it will appear in the tag list. Perform various actions such as adding, finding, and removing tags in the same way as shown above. The keyboard shortcut to add or remove a tag will also work for custom tags.

Remove custom tag

To delete a custom tag you’ve created, open the tag list. You will see the Remove Custom Tag option. Click on it and select the tag you want to remove.

Get them on mobile

Labels come in handy once you get them in your hand. Unfortunately, functionality is limited to OneNote desktop apps only. We hope Microsoft will soon add the functionality to add additional tags on Android and iOS apps.