Manual · Using tagwerk

Tags, people and search

Mark lines with #tags and @people, record readings such as #weight:81.4, see everything about one tag or person in one place, and find any line across all your days.

Tags and people

Two small marks connect lines across days. Both can stand anywhere in a line - in a task, an appointment or plain text:

- [ ] Write the invoice @paul #work
09:30 Sprint review @team #project/api
Called @mira about the move. #family

#tag says what a line is about. Tags nest with a slash: #project/api is a part of #project, and #project/api/docs a part of that.
@name says who a line is about. People do not nest: @paul/pm is @paul followed by text.

Both are compared without regard to case, so #Work and #work are one tag everywhere in the app. Nothing has to be set up first: a tag or a person exists as soon as a line carries it, and there is no address book - @pm and @paul are two people.

When you type # or @, the editor suggests the tags and people you have already used, the ones written nearest to today first. The editor's toolbar buttons Tag and Contact type the sign for you. After #tag: the editor offers the words that tag has carried before - never numbers, because yesterday's weight is not today's.

Where a tag ends

A tag or a name is made of letters, digits, _ and -. Everything else ends it - a space, a full stop, a comma, a bracket. A few consequences:

# Office with a space is a heading; #office is a tag. ##office is neither.
mail@example.com stays an e-mail address. The @ only starts a name after a space or at the start of the line.
Nothing inside a web address counts, and lines inside a code block carry no tags at all.

A hyphen belongs to the name. That is what makes @anna-lena and #one-on-one possible - and it means a hyphen can never end a token. @paul-related is a person called paul-related, not @paul followed by a word, and #offer-acme is one tag, not #offer. Nothing looks wrong when this happens: the whole compound is coloured as a token and the search finds it. You notice weeks later, when the line is missing from @paul's overview. Where you need the hyphen, put a space in front of it or rephrase: @paul - related, Offer for #acme.

The exact rules are in the format specification.

Readings

A tag can carry a value after a colon. The tag stays the same tag; the value is a reading taken on that day:

Weighed myself #weight:81.4
Electricity meter #power:473574
- [x] Evening walk #feeling:good

Numbers may use a point or a comma - 12.5 and 12,5 are the same value. A value with two separators, such as 1.234,56, counts as a word, because it means different things in different countries.
Words such as good are counted rather than averaged.
A full stop at the end of a sentence is not part of the value: #mood:7. is seven.
The same tag may appear several times in one line.

The measurements guide walks through meter readings, weight and habits in practice.

A tag waiting for a reading

A tag with a colon and nothing behind it is waiting for a value:

- [ ] Cold shower #coldshower:

When you tick off such a task - in the note, in the task list, in the task form or on the Android widget - tagwerk asks Enter readings, with one field per waiting tag. What you type is written behind the colon. The field shows the last value as a hint (Last: 81.4); with Pro it brings up a number keyboard for tags that only ever held numbers, and offers the words a tag is usually written with as buttons.

You	Result
Fill every field and Save	The task is done, the values stand behind the colons
Leave a field empty and Finish anyway	The task is done, the empty tag keeps its colon and goes on waiting
Leave a field empty and Save as in progress	The values you typed are written, and the task becomes In progress instead of done
Cancel	The task stays as it was

Enter moves to the next empty field; only in the last one does it save.

Dropping a task asks nothing - a task that did not happen has nothing to measure. A tag without a colon is never asked about.

Entering readings bit by bit. Where two tags or more wait on one task - #power: #gas: #water: - there is Enter readings only beside Done: on the Android widget, as a swipe action in the task list, in the note's task menu and in a task's sheet in the calendar. It asks only for the task's own tags, writes what you type and sets the task to In progress, even when every field is filled. It is ticked off with Done, which then asks only for the readings still missing.

A reading does not travel. When a task is moved to another day, or a repeating task writes its next copy, the copy carries the tag with its colon but without the value: #weight:81.4 arrives as #weight:. A daily habit therefore asks again every day, without any setup.

Tags and people in the side panel

The side panel Calendar and tags lists your tags under Tags and your people under Contacts - see the screenshot in Calendar. On a phone you open it with the panel button at the top left; in the desktop layout it is the left pane.

The order is measured outwards from today: what is written today comes first, then yesterday and tomorrow, and so on. At the same distance the past comes first. That keeps the tags you are working with at the top, and a tag written on an appointment years ahead does not sit there for years.

Each section shows 18 chips; +12 or similar opens the rest. With more than 18, a field (Find a tag..., Find a person...) narrows the list.

Tap a chip to open the overview of that tag or person.

The overview of one tag or person

The overview gathers everything the notes say about one tag or one person:

Section	Shows
Open	Open and begun tasks carrying it, overdue first
Coming up	Appointments in the next 90 days, repetitions included, cancelled ones left out
Done	Finished tasks, newest first
Statistics	Lines, days and what became of the tasks - see below
Mentions	Every line that carries it, grouped by day, newest day first

The overview of @paul on a phone: one open task, statistics and two mentions — The overview of a person. Each row leads to its line in the note.

Tap any row to open its day with the cursor on the line. Search the notes hands the tag or name to the search, where you can narrow it further.

There are four ways in:

tap a chip in the side panel;
hold a tag or name in the note, or right-click it (on a keyboard: Shift+F10 or the menu key);
hold a chip in the task list;
tap an entry in the statistics list.

Statistics

The chart icon beside the Tags heading in the side panel opens Statistics: every tag and every person in your notes, the most written first, with the number of lines each one appears in. A tag with readings says how many (12 readings). With many entries, Find a tag or a person... narrows the list. Tap an entry to open its overview.

The statistics of one tag or person - in its overview - count:

Lines, Days and On tasks, and the span From ... to ...;
for tasks: Open, Done, Moved and Dropped;
Cancelled appointments, where there are any;
for readings that are numbers: Minimum, Maximum, Average, Median, Deviation and Sum, a chart over time, and the Recent values, each leading to its day;
for readings that are words: how often each word was written.

The overview of #weight: statistics, readings with a chart, and the recent values — A tag with readings: the figures, the chart and the latest values.

A nested tag counts towards its parent. The statistics for #project include the lines with #project/api, and say how many came from below (7 of them under #project/...). #projector is a different tag - the boundary is the slash.

Tag colours

A tag can have a colour. It fills the tag's blocks in the calendar, marks its days in the month view and colours its rows on the widget.

In the settings, open Templates & tag colours in the first part - headed Notes, or Profile: ... once you have more than one profile - and choose Assign colours.... Tap a tag to pick one of the palette colours, Own colour for any colour, or No colour. A colour is inherited: give #project a colour and #project/api has it too.

How a coloured tag shows in the note is chosen under In the note:

Coloured tag - the tag is written in its colour (the default);
Dot - a coloured dot behind the tag, while the note keeps its usual colours;
Nothing - the colour only shows in the calendar and on the widgets.

Colour bar at the start of the line adds a coloured edge to every line carrying a coloured tag, in addition to the above.

The colours are saved in your notes folder (settings/tagwerk.colors), so your own sync takes them to your other devices. How they are shown in the note is a setting of the profile.

Search

The magnifier in the toolbar - with a keyboard Ctrl+F - searches every day of your notes. The results appear as you type, grouped by day from today outwards - today, then yesterday and tomorrow, and so on; at the same distance the past comes first - and each day says how far away it is (yesterday, in 4 days). Tap a hit, or move to it with the arrow keys and press Enter, to open its day at that line.

Searching ignores case and accents: strasse finds Straße, muller finds Müller. Before you type, the sheet offers your tags and people as chips; a tap puts one into the field.

A date jumps to its day. Type 2026-08-13, 13.8.2026 or 13.8. and the first entry is that day. Slashes are not read as dates, because 03/04 means different days in different countries.

A query is read word by word, and every part has to hold for a line to match:

Type	Finds lines
`invoice paul`	containing both words, anywhere in the line
`"sprint review"`	containing the phrase as written, or as shown with bold, code or struck text drawn
`#project`	carrying the tag, or one nested under it
`@paul`	carrying exactly that person
`-word`, `-"a phrase"`, `-#tag`, `-@name`	not containing it
`before:2026-09-01`, `after:2026-09-01`	on days before or after that date (the date itself excluded)

The two date operators take no minus: -before: is after:. Written with one, the sheet says the word was left out as text. The date is written as in the file names, 2026-09-01; anything else behind the colon is searched for as text, and the sheet says that too.

With Pro you can also filter by the state of a task or the kind of line. The empty search sheet lists the operators as buttons:

Operator	Finds
`is:open`	tasks still to do, begun ones included
`is:in-progress`	begun tasks, `- [/]`
`is:done`, `is:dropped`, `is:forwarded`	tasks in that state
`is:overdue`	tasks still to do on a day before today
`is:task`	any task
`is:appointment`	lines that start with a time

Each of them can be ruled out with a leading minus, e.g. #work -is:done. The operators are English in both languages of the app.

The list shows up to 200 hits; past that it says Only the first matches are shown. - add a word, a tag or a date to narrow it.

Numbers and diagnostics

Settings → Help & info → Help → *Numbers and diagnostics* counts your whole notes folder: notes and days, characters and lines, tasks by state, appointments, tags and contacts, and the size of the app's own database. Tags are counted as written here - #project and #project/api are two tags; the totals including nested tags are in the statistics.

The page is free. For a bug report holds the same numbers as plain text with Copy, ready to paste into a report. The numbers stay on the device; nothing is sent.

Last reviewed 2026-10-29 · This page as Markdown