Learn how to create and organize your notes with Smart Folders on the iPad.
In addition to organizing your notes in folders, in the Notes app on the iPad, when you tag them, they can automatically be organized by smart folders! When you add a tag or multiple tags to a note, depending on what tags you add, it will automatically be filed in smart folders based on thos tags. You can have a note un multiple folders using this technique. Learn about smart folders and how to use them with tags in the Notes app on the iPad.
Video TranscriptIn this video, we’re going to look at how we can create smart folders for our tagged notes in the Notes app on the iPad. This was introduced to the iPadOS 15. Let’s go to my iPad.So I’m in my Notes app, and if we look, you’re going to see I have a few different tags here. Now, if you’re not familiar with tags, what I recommend you do is take a look at my video on tags in the Notes app. Basically with tags, what we’re able to do is organize our notes by tag. So in addition to organizing them by folder, we can also apply tags. And when we apply tags, what we’re able to do is add multiple tags to a single note so that no could appear in different places. A single note could appear in different folders. And this video, we’re going to look at how it can create smart folders of these tags.
So I have these tags here, Florida and San Francisco. I tap on any one of them to show the notes with that tag. So right now, being that Florida and San Francisco are both highlighted, I can see all the notes here, both tags. My packing list here has both of those tags in it. I want to view all of my notes that just have San Francisco in it. I go over and tap on Florida to de-select it. And now I’m looking at all of my tags I have San Francisco in it.
Now, in addition to having these tags, we can also create a folder that includes specific tags. So, if you like the idea of folders, what you can do is create a folder that includes any tags. And then all you have to do is just add that tag to that note and it’ll put it in the folder automatically. This is what a smart folder is.
So let’s go and create a folder. First, I’m going to go down to my folder icon here. We create a New Smart Folder. We’re going to call this one Florida trip. So now type in here, Florida. And then I select the tag I want to include, so I’m just going to go with Florida here. Now what’s going to happen is this folder, this smart folder is going to include any notes that have the tag Florida in it. So now I just tap on Done. And we can see, we have my new folder here.
So now why would you want to do this? I can already just tap on Florida here to see all of those tags. I tap on Florida here. There are my two tags. I tap on Florida trip here. There are my two tags. Again, the reason why you may want to do this as if you have a lot of tags and you want to create a folder that combined several of those tags.
All you have to do is just go over to your folder here, your smart folder, I’m going to edit this. So I tap and hold and then I’m able to edit it. And then I’m able to add more tags to it. So if you have a lot of tags, you could create a folder that includes just some of these tags. The only notes that are going to show in the smart folder are notes that include all of the selected tags. So if I were to select San Francisco here, it’s only going to show the notes that include both of these tags. I’m going to de-select San Francisco again.
So now we have my folder. Let’s go and add a new note to this. I’m going to go to Travel here and let’s create a new note things to do. So I type in here Things To Do, and I want to add this to my Florida smart folder. So what do you do? Well you just type in the pound sign and then you go over to Florida, you could type it in or tap on this. We can see that we have the tag in here. I can now start typing what I want to do, and this will automatically be added to that smart folder. So now I just go back. And if we go to Florida trip, you’re going to see I have things to do. It automatically added it to that folder.
So that’s how we create smart folders and why we may want to create smart folders for our tagged notes on the iPad. Again, this was introduced with iPadOS 15. To create a new smart folder, you just go down to where we can create a new folder for our notes. And then tap on New Smart Folder. From there, we name our folder and then we select which tags we want to include in that folder. The note does have to include all of those tags that you select an order to show in the smart folder.
So that’s how we create smart folders for our tagged notes on the iPad.