ClickUp has both labels and tags, and they work differently. Labels organize tasks by category or type, while tags let you mark tasks with multiple keywords for filtering. Use labels for broad organization and tags when you need flexible, overlapping ways to sort the same task.
Hey guys, I wanted to pop back with a quick video based on a question that I've seen pop up all over the place recently on Reddit and so on about the difference between labels and tags in ClickUp. So I'm going to do my best to simplify this, but just to get this out of the way. The words are confusing. It's not you. In other tools, tags and labels are used kind of interchangeably, so the fact that ClickUp uses them for such similar features is kind of confusing. But let's first look at the label field and break that down and I think we can make a little bit more sense of this. The label field in ClickUp could probably more appropriately be called called a multiple choice custom field. That's really what it is. So you might be familiar with the dropdown custom field in ClickUp where you can select one option of many. Well, the label field, really all it is is the multiple choice version of that where you can select multiple options from a dropdown list. There you go. It's just like airtable. So that is what the label field is. However, tags are distinct. Tags appear very much like labels. They basically allow you to have multiple choice options to identify a piece of information and and run searches on them just like you can with label fields. However, with tags, when you want to add a tag somewhere, you don't need to create a field. And that's really the key difference, which is a very subtle difference. Whereas the label you're creating a box that you then fill in with a tag, you're kind of just adding information. And if you don't add any information, it just shows up as blank. So rule of thumb here, if you have information that you expect to be there, use a label field. If you have information, that's the exception and not the rule, meaning you have a little note you want to add or something like that. Then use a label field for multiple choice kind of scenarios. Let me just give you an example here to round this out. One of the most common instances where we'll use a tag is for to discuss meeting agendas, which I talk about on this video here if you want a complete tutorial. But basically you create a tag at the everything level that allows you to tag tasks to discuss, and then you pair this with a view or a task list widget that searches all of your tasks and only shows you the list of tasks that have the to discuss tag on them. So this is an exception, not the rule in the sense that most of our tasks we don't Need a to discuss label. We don't need a box like we would a label saying do we want to discuss this? Yes or no? We don't need that. So instead we create a tag. So that way if we don't fill it out, it looks completely normal, but if we do, we can still filter on that information. The second example I can give you from experience on using the tag field is again an exception to the rule, such as if we want to create a public roadmap. So we have a community called clickingup community. It's where we teach people how to use ClickUp. It has our tutorial vault and it's basically how I work with clients these days. And we have a few hundred people who are going through the process of systemizing their business using ClickUp. And in that community I thought it was really important to have a public roadmap. And of course I used ClickUp to do it. And the way I did that, go figure, is with a tag field. So we have a tag called roadmap with a little emoji in it. And basically any task that we want to have show up on the public roadmap, we'll add that tag to. And when we add that tag, it all shows up in a view that we have filtered to only show tasks with the tag applied and then that view is publicly embedded inside our membership area. So everyone knows exactly what is on our roadmap. The reason this is so helpful is because we have tasks from all over our ClickUp account on the roadmap. New content ideas, you know, live webinars, a new update, a new marketing platform, a new website. Those kinds of things are tangentially related to course roadmap, but they're not something we'd all have in one place in the ClickUp hierarchy. So unlike label fields where they're custom fields where they have to be in the hierarchy somewhere, this tag I can just throw onto tasks, no matter where they are and know that they're always going to end up in that same filtered view. So I hope this makes sense. I hope this is a quick but helpful explanation on the difference between labels and tags. If you expect there to always be consistent data, or mostly be consistent data, you probably want to create a label field. It's just going to be more organized and self contained. But if you're doing something that's kind of an exception to the rule, if you're bulk bulking the system, if you have a hot list, a priority list, an emergency tag, a to discuss tag, a roadmap, whatever. That could be a good use case to have tags applied instead. Oh, and I should say before we go, if you find after watching this video that tags aren't something that you're likely going to need, you can also turn on or off tags per space so you might decide that your main space you maybe want tags to have things for to discuss, but in all of your other areas this is just a needless feature that's going to confuse people. And if that's the case for you, I definitely recommend turning them off. Less is more and ClickUp. And I'm all in favor of simplifying your experience as much as possible so you can get to the work you actually need to do. So if you want to turn this off, go into your space settings, it's under the three dots and click on the click apps and then turn off the tags feature and that'll make sure that tags are not available in your workspace. Of course, the reverse is also true. If this got you really excited about tags, just turn them on doing the same thing. But otherwise I think that's it for this tutorial. And just so you guys know, this actual question, though it's popped up recently actually was originally answered inside Clickingup our membership community months and months ago. We have a whole vault of hundreds of questions that we answer live every single week and timestamp inside the community for our members. And it's one of the ways that we help people speed up the ClickUp learning curve, because when they have questions, we answer them right away with a solid answer that you don't have to wait for on YouTube or wade through Google search results to find. So if you're someone who is stumbling into these questions and you're like, I am tired of going down YouTube rabbit holes to try to figure this out, Definitely check out ClickingUp Community. It's in the description below. It's the main way we work with people and it walks you through the ClickUp setup process as quick as possible, using our templates, our guidance, and our expertise along the way to make it as quick of a process and as painless of a process as we possibly can. So check that out if you're interested. Otherwise, thank you guys so much for watching. Be sure to like and subscribe. And if you want to watch more videos like this, this would be the next one I recommend. Until next time, enjoy the process.
