Tagging is an easy way to categorize items by attaching descriptive words to them. You can tag your information with whatever relevant keyword or term you would like associated with that given item. These tags allow you to sift through your information in a personal way, by the categories that you deem relevant. Consider watching our screencast on Tags and the Tag Selector Box.

Tags	Tag Selector Box

To add a tag to an item simply select the tags tab in the right column and hit the button. Then type your tag. Once you have added the tag you will see it has also been added to the tag selector box in the left column.

Located in the bottom-left-hand corner of the Zotero pane, the tag selector adds an additional layer of information management to complement the collection and search systems. To open the tag selector simply drag it into view from the bottom of the left column. The tag selector updates its inventory from tags you place on individual items in your Library. By clicking on any of the tags, you can filter the items within your Library, collections and saved searches by as many or as few tags as you like.

The tag selector defaults to showing all the tags on items in the current folder. When you click on a given tag, the center column updates to display only the items with that tag. You can select multiple tags to further focus the results in the center column or click on a tag again to deselect it. To quickly find a tag in the list, type part of its name in the Filter box; selected tags not matching what you type remain selected, allowing you to quickly find and select multiple items. It is also possible to click the “Deselect all” button to return the center column to displaying all the items in the selected folder.

From this box you can also control the tags globally. By right-clicking on a tag (or Control-clicking on the Mac) you can choose to rename a tag across all items or delete it from all of the records it is attached to. You can also assign tags to multiple items at once by dragging items from the items pane onto tags in the tag selector. This is where the “Display all tags” checkbox comes in handy: while the tag selector normally only shows you tags on items in the current view, clicking “Display all tags” causes tags not assigned to currently visible items to appear in gray. You can then drag items onto one of the gray tags to assign it to those items.

Note that some items that you save may come with tags already attached. If Zotero detects classification information or other metadata as part of a catalog record, it will, in some cases, extract that information as a tag. For example, OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog) record subject headings become Zotero tags. You can manage these automatic tags in the same way that you manage the tags you add manually.

To prevent Zotero from automatically adding tags, disable “Automatically tag items with keywords and subject headings” in the Zotero preferences. Existing automatic tags can be hidden from the tag selector by clicking the multi-color button to the right of the tag selector's Filter field and deselecting “Show Automatic”.