How to Assign a Keyboard Shortcut to Tags... In the File Menu of the Finder

macOS 10.14 / Keyboard Maestro

  1. I would like to assign “Tags...” in the File menu of Finder to a keyboard shortcut.

image

  1. I notice in File menu it is not possible to use the arrow keys to go onto/down to the colour labels or “Tags...” itself

  2. In the Keyboard Maestro Interface Control / Select or Show a Menu Item “Tags...“ does not appear as an option and typing “Tags...” in the Menu Item does not cause any assigned shortcut to option the Tags window in Finder for any selected file.

  3. I have tired to assign a shortcut through System Preferences / Keyboard / Shortcuts. Again without success.

The only way I have been able to assign a shortcut in Keyboard Maestro is:

  1. take a screen shot of the ‘Edit Tags’ icon on the toolbar;

image

  1. then use the screen shot with the Move or Click Mouse action.

Would another Keyboard Maestro user have a better solution?

(Note: I have used ellipsises for the ‘...’ not 3 dots.)

I suspect that you may not have an item selected in the Finder when you tried that.
I works for me:

image

Running Keyboard Maestro 8.2.4 on macOS 10.12.6.

Thank you for the response.

An item is definitely selected.
Tags.kmmacros (1.7 KB)

My macro is attached.

The entries in the engine.log are:

2018-10-24 08:36:22 Execute macro “Tags” from trigger The Hot Key ⌃⌥T is pressed
2018-10-24 08:36:22 Select Menu Item failed to find target menu item File➤Tags….
2018-10-24 08:36:22 Select Menu Item failed to find target menu item File➤Tags…. Macro “Tags” cancelled (while executing Select “Tags…” in the Menu “File” in Finder).

I also note the following repeated entry in the engine.log:

2018-10-24 08:40:08 Invalid Plug In Action with Name Set Finder Label

The only difference I can see that your macro works on 10.12.6 and I am running 10.14.

Setting the shortcut in System Preferences works for me in High Sierra (and earlier — can't remember when I first set it but it's been a few years).

Then the issue is most likely due to macOS Mojave. Sorry, but I can't help you with that since I'm not running Mojave, and don't plan to for many months.

@VWKM, that is definitely worth a try.

Hey Victor,

Da.

How do you set the Mac File Tag from KM?

-Chris

If of any help and as an alternative to the Finder menu, I use a "tag" command line utility to tag my photos from the finder with the help of a KM macro.

Leo

Hi @VWKM, in macOS Mojave there are probably still some bugs and to it probably also belongs that one cannot create a shortcut for "Tags ..." nor can work with the arrow keys.

I made something with an AppleScript and with the Click at Found Image action. Maybe it will help you.

Tags.kmmacros (12,8 KB)

Tags

2018_10_28%20KM

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Anyone able to get this to work on Big Sur? None of the solutions above seem to work.

Hi @jayhlee, I use these two macros on macOS Big Sur for entering tags as well as removing them:

2021_01_07_Support_1

Here are the macros for it:

Add Tags...

03)Add <7A4C 210107T224329>.kmmacros (37,9 KB)

Remove Tags...

05)Remove <6A04 210107T224350>.kmmacros (37,2 KB)

@appleainer Thanks! I tried to get this to work using a hotkey, but that doesn't seem to work. That is, when I select a file/folder in Finder and trigger the hotkey, it throws an error. Also, when you try to add a tag to multiple files, you have to manually add the tag to each file with each prompt. Is that the expected behavior? Or is there a way to have the added tag apply to all selected files/folders? Vielen Dane für Irhe Hilfe!

Using just a few keystrokes, you can access the Tags. The steps below will tag a file Red. You can vary the number of down arrows to add a different tag. Of course, this assume that you have a file selected. I did this with Mac OS Monterey 12.2.1.

You can remove a tag with even few steps.

Hey David,

True, but you can also access tags with Keyboard Maestro native actions.

See the Set File Attribute action.

As usual – TMTOWTDI

:sunglasses:

-Chris

Thanks Chris. I wasn’t aware of that.

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