On Jan 11, 2023, at 8:27 PM, Leo <var@...> wrote:

I wonder if anyone has figured out a way to retrieve ALL available Finder tags on Monterey and later?

On pre-Monterey systems, it was possible by reading this file:

~/Library/SyncedPreferences/com.apple.finder.plist

However, this file doesn't exist anymore.

Other methods (such as reading Finder prefs or fileLabels of NSWorkspace) only return the 8 standard labels - but not any custom tags created by the user.

Googling the subject didn't produce any results.


Thanks for any info,
Leo 

On Jan 13, 2023, at 8:31 AM, Steve Mills via groups.io <sjmills@...> wrote:

On Jan 12, 2023, at 12:37, Thomas Tempelmann <tempelmann@...> wrote:

I doubt it's Spotlight that stores them because they also work on vols where the Spotlight index is disabled.

Spotlight has to store them in order to find them, so they'd be stored there as well as where ever the file system puts them.

--
Steve Mills
Drummer, Mac geek

On Jan 13, 2023, at 9:23 AM, Alex Zavatone via groups.io <zav@...> wrote:

There's unfortunately no API in macOS to retrieve the tags that you have created yourself in the Finder.

The solution is to parse the ~/Library/SyncedPreferences/com.apple.finder.plist:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41779969/how-do-i-retrieve-all-available-finder-tags

This gets all Finder tags labels.

You can also select only the custom tags (ignore the system ones):

func customTagLabels() -> [String] {
    let url = URL(fileURLWithPath: "\(NSHomeDirectory())/Library/SyncedPreferences/com.apple.finder.plist")
    let keyPath = "values.FinderTagDict.value.FinderTags"
    if let d = try? Data(contentsOf: url) {
        if let plist = try? PropertyListSerialization.propertyList(from: d, options: [], format: nil),
            let pdict = plist as? NSDictionary,
            let ftags = pdict.value(forKeyPath: keyPath) as? [[AnyHashable: Any]]
        {
            return ftags.flatMap { tag in
                if let n = tag["n"] as? String,
                    tag.values.count != 2
                {
                    return n
                }
                return nil
            }
        }
    }
    return []
}

Text copied verbatum from StackOverflow.

Hope this helps.

Alex Zavatone

On Jan 13, 2023, at 8:31 AM, Steve Mills via groups.io <sjmills@...> wrote:

On Jan 12, 2023, at 12:37, Thomas Tempelmann <tempelmann@...> wrote:

I doubt it's Spotlight that stores them because they also work on vols where the Spotlight index is disabled.

Spotlight has to store them in order to find them, so they'd be stored there as well as where ever the file system puts them.

--
Steve Mills
Drummer, Mac geek

On Jan 13, 2023, at 9:23 AM, Alex Zavatone via groups.io <zav@...> wrote:

There's unfortunately no API in macOS to retrieve the tags that you have created yourself in the Finder.

The solution is to parse the ~/Library/SyncedPreferences/com.apple.finder.plist:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41779969/how-do-i-retrieve-all-available-finder-tags

This gets all Finder tags labels.

You can also select only the custom tags (ignore the system ones):

func customTagLabels() -> [String] {
    let url = URL(fileURLWithPath: "\(NSHomeDirectory())/Library/SyncedPreferences/com.apple.finder.plist")
    let keyPath = "values.FinderTagDict.value.FinderTags"
    if let d = try? Data(contentsOf: url) {
        if let plist = try? PropertyListSerialization.propertyList(from: d, options: [], format: nil),
            let pdict = plist as? NSDictionary,
            let ftags = pdict.value(forKeyPath: keyPath) as? [[AnyHashable: Any]]
        {
            return ftags.flatMap { tag in
                if let n = tag["n"] as? String,
                    tag.values.count != 2
                {
                    return n
                }
                return nil
            }
        }
    }
    return []
}

Text copied verbatum from StackOverflow.

Hope this helps.

Alex Zavatone

On Jan 13, 2023, at 8:31 AM, Steve Mills via groups.io <sjmills@...> wrote:

On Jan 12, 2023, at 12:37, Thomas Tempelmann <tempelmann@...> wrote:

I doubt it's Spotlight that stores them because they also work on vols where the Spotlight index is disabled.

Spotlight has to store them in order to find them, so they'd be stored there as well as where ever the file system puts them.

--
Steve Mills
Drummer, Mac geek