Troubleshooting : Slow Finder Dialogs

Slow Finder Dialogs

If you find the Open or Save dialog in applications on your Mac are opening or performing slowly, it may be that you have too many tags in your system. Having 5000 tags or more in your filesystem can cause the Finder to stall as it tries to process them.

As noted in the Finder Tags and Tagging Sources subsections, tags can come from several sources. These tags can also be added to your Finder tags, perhaps unknowingly.

Tags are added to the Finder tags from DEVONthink in one of three ways:

Spotlight Index: In the Database Properties popover for a given database, there is a Create Spotlight Index option. If this is enabled, DEVONthink includes tags as part of the Spotlight metadata, enabling you to use Spotlight searches like tags:support in the Finder. However, this also adds to the tags processed by the Finder. If you disable the Spotlight index for a database, the tags for that database will immediately be removed from the Finder tags,
Indexed files: If you're indexing files, any tags you apply in DEVONthink are automatically applied to the files in the Finder.
Exporting files: If you export files to the Finder, the tags are added to the Finder tags as they're part of the metadata of the files. The exports include using the File > Export > Files and Folders command, drag and drop from DEVONthink to the Finder, or doing a File > Rebuild Database.

Regarding the last two items, you can prohibit DEVONthink from exporting tags to the Finder. Disable Export Tags in the Files > Tags settings. Note this is a global setting, affecting all databases. Also, disabling this option will not remove already exported tags from the Finder.

Deleting tags in the Finder: While disabling the Spotlight index for a database will immediately remove Finder tags from the system, the other options will not.

To manually remove tags, in the Finder press ⌘-, to open the settings. Select the Tags view. Here you will see a complete list of Finder tags. Select the tags you want to remove and press the minus button. You will be prompted to approve the deletion. Note: This does not remove any files. It only removes the tags.