The Easiest Way to Stop Losing Important iPhone Notes

Your iPhone is packed with useful features, such as voice isolation for calls And the ability to see all of your Wi-Fi passwords — and, Apple Notes is no exception. The app is one of the most powerful note-taking tools in the mobile world. It’s the clutch for shopping lists, on-the-fly reminders, and for jotting down all the other important information you can think of.

There are many ways to use the Notes app to keep track of everything in your life. But if you’ve had an iPhone for a long time, chances are you’ve accumulated a large collection of Notes, which can make it difficult to find the Notes you actually need on a regular basis.

One of the most convenient solutions came in the form of beacons, which were added to iOS 15 in 2021.

Tags, which are similar to hashtags used on social media sites like Instagram or TikTok, can be added anywhere on a note, including the title. You can add them at any time, even retroactively. You can also organize your notes into regular folders, but it takes a bit of planning and thought.

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To add a tag to a note, type # then enter a new tag name and press the spacebar. You can also choose an existing tag. Type # and select the tag you want from the suggestions that appear above your keyboard, where AutoCorrects are usually located.

The three tags that I use regularly are the #recipe, #grocerylist and #receipt tags. When I press the #recipe tag, Notes displays a collection of recipes I’ve tagged, regardless of the folder they’re stored in. I tap my #grocerylist tag, which will serve up all my previous grocery lists, when it’s time for me to restock. And I’ll refer to my #receipt tag, which displays tagged receipts, when I reconcile expenses against my credit card statement.

Tags don’t have to be a continuous word, but they can’t contain spaces. You can use hyphens, numbers and underscores, for example #receipts-feb2023 or #grocerylist-vegan. You can also add multiple tags to a single note or use tags to create smart folders, which are essentially a collection of notes put together by tag, regardless of the folder they’re stored in.

Don’t worry if you’ve never used tags before and want to start organizing your notes. You can tag multiple notes retroactively — here’s how.

1. Go to the folder with the list of notes
2. Press the More button (three dots), then select Remarks
3. Select the notes you want to label, then tap Key words at the bottom of the screen. If you already have a collection of tags, iPhone will show the ones you already have to choose from. (So ​​when selecting notes, it’s more efficient to choose ones with similar topics if possible so you can tag them all at once.) If you don’t have pre-existing tags, iPhone will suggest beacon suggestions for you to choose.
4. Select the tags you want to add to notes, then tap Do.

If you want to collect your tagged notes in a folder, use the Smart Folder feature (introduced alongside Tags in iOS 15) as follows:

1. Press the New folder button
2. Enter a name and press Convert to Smart Folder
3. Choose the filters you want — certain tags, when notes were created, when they were last modified and more — these notes will automatically be included in the folder
4. Faucet Doand your smart folder is created

You can also convert a normal folder to a smart folder by pressing the plus button and choosing the “convert” option.

If you enjoyed this iPhone productivity hack, be sure to check out these 10 hidden iOS 16 settings that will change the way you use your iPhone, plus the most annoying iOS 16 features and how to fix them.