I’m using the desktop app for Mac and would like to request the ability to select multiple tags simultaneously in the sidebar to filter notes dynamically.
Proposed Implementation:
AND filtering: Click one tag, hold Shift, click another tag → shows notes with BOTH tags
OR filtering: Click while holding Shift + Option → shows notes with EITHER tag
The problem:
I organize my notes with a two-tier tagging system: broad category tags (“music”, “tech”, “travel”) combined with content-type tags (“ideas”, “research”, “lists”). This creates natural intersections like:
“tech” + “ideas” = app concepts and framework explorations
“music” + “research” = microphone comparisons and recording techniques
“travel” + “lists” = packing lists and activity planning
Currently, there’s no native way to view these intersections, forcing me to choose between two workarounds:
Creates tag explosion: If I have 20 categories × 4 content types = 80+ total tags
Having so many tags clutters the sidebar, making it harder to scan and navigate
Loses the flexibility of the tagging system—if I add another category (“writing”), I need to add all the compound tags again
Makes reorganization painful—changing tag names requires updating hundreds or thousands of notes
Search for tags individually (current workflow)
Slow and repetitive
Requires remembering exact tag names
No visual context of what’s selected
Need to remember keyword for either/or searches
This feature would make tags exponentially more powerful without adding UI complexity—it simply provides a visual interface for functionality that already exists but remains hidden from most users.
OK, I agree, a more convenient method to use the search for keywords and tags should be offered. I would prefer to have options like selection of tags in or besides the search field, for instance.
In my opinion, this is the simpler and more intuitive implementation. Multi-tag selection in the left sidebar is counterintuitive, as clicking on a tag clearly means displaying its content in the notes list. However, filling a search field – and in a different pane (notes list) at that – is not a common operation.
I think I wrote somewhere here in the forum some time ago that tags within an autocomplete list, which is displayed as soon as you start typing a tag, would be the most elegant solution. If the tags displayed in this initial autocomplete list were limited just to those tags that appear in the notes of the notes list, you would have an extremely powerful tool.
I would love to see this implemented! Especially when i need to perform multiple searches from within a certain context (much like we currently do with a tag being selected)
The fact that #travel #lists works as AND is powerful, but it’s not visually obvious. A sidebar multi-select would make this discoverable without requiring users to learn syntax.
I’d also support autocomplete for tags and operators in the search field - that would help bridge the gap by making the syntax more discoverable. Both improvements (sidebar multi-select AND search autocomplete) would make Bear’s tagging system more accessible.
The search syntax is great for power users who know it exists, but a visual interface would make that same power accessible to everyone. It’s not about adding new capability—it’s about surfacing existing capability through better UX.
I find clicking around in the tag tree to fill in a search field in another pane to be counterintuitive like almost nothing else. Everything related to searching imo should happen in the second pane, namely the notes list.
We agree on the WHAT and differ only on the HOW. If I remember correctly, the developers promised some time ago that they would take care of the search function at some point. And there is still a lot more that could be done with Bear. I am sure the devs will find the best implementation
I also posted a feature request to update the sidebar tag list dynamically with the intersection of tags as the user selects one or more of them. IMO the greatest power of tags is unless she’s when one can somehow browse intersections of tags. I realize thought that the dinamicaly filtered sidebar would probably be to complex for bear.
But the suggestion that auto complete tag suggestions filtered to only show tags that occur with the current search would achieve much the same power (revealing intersect) while keeping the simplicity that is one of the hallmark of the app
I like your idea of using the tag pane for boolean search-by-tag operations, but how is your use of modifier keys to select ANDed and ORed tags more discoverable than the search expression syntax? And how would you represent which tags are ANDed and which are ORed in the tag list?
I remember that post. Such a browsing within linked intersections of tags is indeed powerful. But that’s precisely why such a feature should be designed to be as simple and intuitive as possible. And in my opinion, a dynamic autocomplete field in the note list search is a much better alternative to a distracting combination of two panes for doing something that can be done just as well in a single pane. I wouldn’t even rule out the possibility that there might be an even better solution if the developers decided to improve the search function in this regard.
