In
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ances ...
's
Macintosh operating systems
Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc.
In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the Classic Mac OS, "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the System 1, original Macintosh System Software. ...
, labels are a type of seven distinct colored and named parameters of
metadata that can be attributed to items (files, folders and disks) in the
filesystem
In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...
.
Labels were introduced in Macintosh
System 7
System 7, codenamed "Big Bang", and also known as Mac OS 7, is a graphical user interface-based operating system for Macintosh computers and is part of the classic Mac OS series of operating systems. It was introduced on May 13, 1991, by Apple Co ...
, released in 1991,
and they were an improvement of the ability to colorize items in earlier versions of the
Finder
Finder may refer to:
* Finder (surname)
* Finder (software), part of the Apple Macintosh operating system
* ''Finder'' (comics), a comic book series by Carla Speed McNeil
* ''Finder'' (novel), a 1994 novel by Emma Bull
* Finder Wyvernspur, a fi ...
.
[ Labels remained a feature of the Macintosh operating system through the end of ]Mac OS 9
Mac OS 9 is the ninth major release of Apple's classic Mac OS operating system which was succeeded by Mac OS X (renamed to OS X in 2011 and macOS in 2016) in 2001. Introduced on October 23, 1999, it was promoted by Apple as "The Best Internet ...
in late 2001, but they were omitted from Mac OS X
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
versions 10.0 to 10.2, before being reintroduced in version 10.3 in 2003, though not without criticism.
In classic Mac OS
In classic Mac OS
Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. Th ...
versions 7 through 9, applying a label to an item causes the item's icon to be tinted in that color when using a color computer monitor
A computer monitor is an output device that displays information in pictorial or textual form. A discrete monitor comprises a visual display, support electronics, power supply, housing, electrical connectors, and external user controls.
The ...
(as opposed to the black-and-white monitors of early Macs), and labels can be used as a search and sorting criterion.001 through 111, and 000 for no label. The names of the colors can be changed to represent categories assigned to the label colors.[ Both label colors and names can be customized in the classic Mac OS systems; however, ]Mac OS 8
Mac OS 8 is an operating system that was released by Apple Computer on July 26, 1997. It includes the largest overhaul of the classic Mac OS experience since the release of System 7, approximately six years before. It places a greater emphasis o ...
and 9 provided this functionality through the Labels tab in the Finder Preferences dialog, while System 7 provided a separate Labels control panel.[ Labels in Mac OS 9 and earlier, once customized, were specific to an individual install; booting into another install, be it on another Mac or different disk would show different colors and names unless set identically. A colorless label could be produced by changing a label's color to black or white.][
]
In Mac OS X and later
Mac OS X versions 10.3 to 10.8 apply the label color to the background of item names, except when an item is selected in column view, which changes the item name to the standard highlight color except for a label-colored dot after the name.[ Beginning in ]OS X 10.9
OS X Mavericks (version 10.9) is the 10th major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. OS X Mavericks was announced on June 10, 2013, at WWDC 2013, and was released on October 22, 2013, worldw ...
, the label-colored background of item names is replaced with a small label-colored dot, and becomes a kind of tag.[
]
Relation to tags
The Mac operating system has allowed users to assign multiple arbitrary tags as extended file attributes Extended file attributes are file system features that enable users to associate computer files with metadata not interpreted by the filesystem, whereas regular attributes have a purpose strictly defined by the filesystem (such as permissions or r ...
to any item ever since OS X 10.9 was released in 2013.[ Since label colors can be changed in classic Mac OS but are standardized and unchangeable in the newer operating systems, someone who wants to synchronize the label colors between a classic and modern system can change the label colors in classic Mac OS to match the newer system.]
See also
*
References
MacOS
{{mac-software-stub