A couple of announcements! One, I’ve open-sourced TagStudio! It’s still in a VERY early state and is packed full of bugs where features should be, so PLEASE keep that in mind! Second, I’m opening up a Discord server! Come chat about software development, creative projects, Obsidian, and get updates or help work on TagStudio! TagStudio GitHub: github.com/CyanVoxel/TagStudio Discord Server: discord.gg/hRNnVKhF2G

I need TagStudio NOW. My files on my computer is a mess.

dont you dare stop. i'd give you money if i had money to give

As a sound designer, who combs thru endless number of libraries for that right sound, this pleases me

Finally someone realized how file management actually should be done

It's so rare to see a project that stems from a single problem that people actually face, rather than a general concept that works it's way backwards

I just gotta say, that TagStudio logo is *sleek*. Simple, but with a satisfying neon flair and literally dripping with originality to make it iconic.

Friend, what you are creating has SO MUCH value. I work on a lot of data governance initiatives. Microsoft (and other) solutions that classify (tag) and protect data are so customizable in the way you can define any attribute/key combinations you want - but implementing this is often incredibly cumbersome and complex. You’re relying strictly on Office or File Explorer to manage classifications or other attributes, and it’s not a fun experience if you’re working with LOTS of data. Especially when there’s data that, ya know… isn’t an Office file type or PDF 😂 I can think of SO MANY customers who would have benefited immensely from TagStudio. You’re trying to solve a personal problem, but you solved a HUGE enterprise problem and didn’t even know it. Your approach and process is what sets your solution apart from any other, you’re really onto something huge. I can’t wait for public release! Is there any way I can contribute or help you with this project? PS- Eagle isn’t that great, so don’t let it discourage you 😂

Duplicating files and moving them from their original place is honestly a dealbreaker. ( talking about Eagle, not TagStudio )

Watching this video has made me realize that file organization structures can be A LOT better than they currently are. It's pretty crazy how few solutions there are to just search through your stuff in a reasonable way.

I've been using Eagle for a year, it's amazing and has the best UI I've seen after trying many file management software options out there. I'm glad to have found a new competitor. Your project has potential, and I support it. I would suggest you open source your project, and let's work together to make this even better than Eagle. In the future, Tag Studio could have an even better UI than Eagle, with animations, smoothness, performance, a plugin system, and privacy. Wish you all the luck!

Please don’t let this project down this could benefit a lot of people

Edit: just finished the video and my guy, I have to say the storytelling is very well done, was hooked the whole time. Well done, your channel will definitely blow up.

An open source and Linux compatible app like yours would be sooooo amazing. Please continue development if you'd like, and if not, consider publishing it so others can continue it!

As a web developer, this makes SO much sense. In WordPress, most websites use essentially the same system. Every post has hierarchical categories, non-hierarchical tags, and any number of additional, domain-specific taxonomies (think of them as each taxonomy for "meta tags", "artist", etc"), along with many number of post types (image, text, product to buy). To think that image boards had the right idea since early 2000s... I never thought to apply this concept to files, I always keep my files in a tree structure. Thank you for the revelation, and the program, I might give it a go!

I've wasted so much time renaming every single file i download to add descriptions, artist names, etc. This would honestly save me so much time, ty for making this

What you've created is essentially an image board. Image boards have tags that apply to media, the tags are very hyperspecific to be as descriptive as possible, and often break into categories like artist, character and general (they don't affect the tags, it just makes it a little more readable), but tags also have aliases and implications. A tag alias would be like auburn_hair -> red_hair, so when you set auburn_hair, or search for it, it's automatically replaced with red_hair, but the former is so commonly searched that there's an alias. Implications are just auto-applied tags. If your image has a red_hair tag, then that obviously implies the character HAS hair, so hair would also automatically be applied. The files themselves are typically stored by their md5 or sha hash, while a database manages which tags are applied to which files. Image boards in general go by a "tag what you see" rule of thumb, that is, when you're tagging an image, you pick out every tiny detail that you can see in the image and you add it as a tag. There are also tag wikis which describe what the tag means, what implications and aliases are associated with it, and also similar tags. For example, for "Bowser_(Super Mario)", you might have King_Koopa aliased to it, might implicate the koopa species as well as the super mario franchise, and might list the koopalings and other major mario characters in the tag wiki. What sets your program apart, though, is that image boards are usually a cloud-exclusive thing. This is the first time I've seen a local image board. If your program doesn't already have tag aliases and implications, you should consider adding them. It's rather simple, but saves a lot of effort, especially like with things you were agonizing about like one piece the anime vs one piece the manga. You could just have a one piece tag in the franchise/copyright tag category and then separate anime/manga tags such that a search for "one_piece color manga" would pull up an image you have that's from the one piece manga but in color. I'd say just study image boards in general. Danbooru in particular. Their tag system is fancy as hell. Like with your bulk tag adding thing you mention at the end, if you look at the way danbooru does tag editing, it just throws them all into a big textarea and you can type out all the tags one by one. They're space separated and the changes you make are quickly applied. When typing out part of a tag name, it'll give autocomplete suggestions so you're less prone to making a typo. Very simple and effective. It should also be mentioned that the terminology is a bit confusing. There are forums like 4chan that also refer to themselves as "imageboards", and indeed that's what wikipedia defines an image board as. But the focus on *chan boards has always been first and foremost as a fast-paced internet forum, whereas the *booru boards I'm talking about are focused on archiving and categorizing media, and discussion on them pertains to said media. How best to organize it, or just talking in the comments about how this specific image is neat. In fact I'm pretty sure danbooru's source code is on github, which is why there are so many *booru boards. Do it, be the first FOSS local imageboard.

My dude... the algorithm gods were good to me today! Not only have I been trying to solve that EXACT issue, but I have to say: production quality on your content is freaking top tier. Like it pro level quality. I'm not a huge Obsidian user, but I kinda want to start going down that rabbit hole just because of your story telling skills. GG my man, gg!

I'm a graphic designer and video editor. I've reorganized my files twice in the last month alone. I cannot tell you how many duplicates of files I find all over the place when I start or finish a project for a client, or how many general assets that should be singular files end up in 5 different folders across 3 clients. Plus, things like music and sound effects are a pain because of how many different genres just one song could fall under, or how many different descriptors could be used to describe a sound effect. A wooshing sound that is a higher pitch than the others but also sounds comedic and shouldn't be used in a cinematic video ends up in a folder titled "Wooshes/Memes," my third "Wooshes" folder. If TagStudio ever supports audio files such as regular ole .mp3 files and .WAV files, along with .mp4 and .mov files, I will definitely pick it up as it would be a fantastic addition to my tools

I have been STRUGGLING with folder organization. If I couldn't find a satisfying solution I would've gone outta my way to create my own project to remedy it. I'm so glad I found this!

I've been absolutely flabbergasted for years that something like this does not exist. Photo/asset organization is a universal problem in the gigantic world of graphic design and publishing, yet in spite of the technical capability already baked into every operating system, no app is tailored for this use case. I'm sure there is a complexity to it that I am not currently capable of understanding, but still. It's so puzzling how we have been so close for over a decade, with nothing to fill this gap.

GIME TAGSTUDIO PLS this is HUGE. Along with Obsidian, you're about to singlehandedly change many people's digital lives for the better. Cheers!

I’ve wanted this for a literal decade please please please finish it

Thats exactly what I've been searching for since forever! Wanted to do it myself as well, but the project seemed too daunting. Props to you for actually putting in the effort!

Holy shit! A lot of programmers could really learn from you my dude. Not only do you take the time to make something extraordinary, but you take the time to share it in a format that is digestible to a real audience so that it’s not immediately lost in the abyss or left in the realm of obscurity. Hats off to you! Also, the video quality is top notch.

Im looking into swtiching to Linux and thought, "okay, how can i get this on Linux". My eyes lit up when i heard QT!

Literally I have dreamed of exactly your program all my life in which I used a computer. And on top of that, it looks the best possible way to me at least. I love the design so much so much! I really hope you can finish as soon as possible so that I can finally organize my files or should I say memes. I literally spent like 5 hours in the span of several weeks downloading memes I like and then I forgot about them, because there is no way to see them all efficiently or to search them up as good as in your program. Thank you for making it in advance!

Thanks for this! This Project sits in my "things-to-do" list since like 10 years!

The first thing I see missing right now is simply a better search. Excluding tags is a big thing (for example, a query like "shrek -meme" leading to shrek-tagged content that isn't tagged meme or a subtag of meme) But also more options: What if I want one of two tags? I can't do an "or" search. If we're talking feature creep, quality search is definitely a prime candidate to prioritize.

1. Great comparisons 2. Shows when to skip 3. Beautiful editing 4. AND gets something done?! Subscribed 👏👏

You put exactly into words my problems with all my file and gallery apps and made a program seemingly tailored to my needs and wishes. Awesome work

First video of yours that I have watched and I love it. I love the style of the images in front of the continuous background and how you speak. Definitely watching more of your videos and I am going to stay tuned to find out more about Tag Studio

I don't know about you, but after watching your video I can clearly see multiple advantages TagStudio has over Eagle: 1. your tag system has far more capabilities than Eagle's. Subtags and aliases can be a deal breaker! 2. no use of sidecar files at all 3. simpler GUI Wish you all the luck!

PLEASE keep on this project. This is something I'll desperately need for the future, and Eagle doesn't sound super appealing to me atm. You really have the potential to be making one of, if not THE best file organizing system around.

I love it… I was almost as obsessive about this problem just as you, but never dared to get started with something big like that.

Thank you for your work and creativity on this very thoughtful project! You have definitely helped me rethink how I could go about my file organization. Great job and I’m excited for what ever you have planned next.

Since it's your own app I think that it's definitely worth it still developing it. Even if you find something else in some other app that works apparently better than yours you'll end up thinking the same conclusions you came up with by the end of this video, they're just not as custom as the way you want they are. So, I think that the best thing you can go for it's just "stealing" all ideas you will come across, rielaborate and keep developing them on your TagStudio, that it's just amazing. I believe this as I've been noticing that in every kind of organizations I've had for any system, whatever it was(notes, idea, photos, clothes, projects), I've always been through the same steps: 1. Starting with enthusiasm without any customization by my own, just the basics that it offers (taking notes without thinking twice) 2. Starting with customization using what it comes with (getting an app and diving into the program features, ex. Notability) 3. Bothering by its limitation (okay, it get the work done thought I've seen that other programs can do something else interesting too (ex. Goodnotes) 4. Starting customizing also that tool with my workflow (ex. Goodnotes + my workflow) 5. Getting aware that probably there's something already prepared by someone else and that could probably overtake what I've been doing (maybe my workflow isn't that special as I thought...) 6. Getting aware that what I did instead it's useful as it has showed me the full map of possibilities, and probably if I had to start over I would go through the same steps, however, this time I would be conscious. These passages can be abstracted for any kind of activity I believe. Everything in the end will just collapse into the awareness that a good work won't ever stop getting better and better, though, we did our custom share, and the satisfaction from it is unrivalled. Lastly, there's no comparison between the look and feel you can pull out from your efforts and someone else work, just think about color palette, yours it's marvelous man!

Dear Mr. CyanVoxel, a program like yours is direly needed by many data hoarders such as my very own self. I personally do not appreciate the way Eagle is marketed, and the fact that it's supposed to be a 'reference library' means its development will likely have a narrow focus. I also strongly dislike the idea of duplicate files being created (some files can be 100+ GB). A tagging program like yours, offline-only and with no privacy breaches and no side-cars would be a dream come true. I'm hoping that such a program would be able to identify any file renames that happens while the program is not running. You've already made my Obsidian experience more enjoyable, hoping to continue seeing your workspace as it evolves. Cheers!

I have been thinking about this problem for 20+ years. I just couldn't understand why everyone on a computer wouldn't be thinking about this because what we really need has NOT been out there and it's NOT rocket science? But every time I would bring it up to the most gifted programmers and software engineers, they woiuld look at me blankly. I have a lot of ideas about add-on products for a working system. I am so excited about this! (I love the "Thanos moment" comment.)

Every good program starts with a Thanos moment, great job on the video and congrats on saying “I guess I’ll just do it myself”, you should be proud

This is genuinely the exact kind of app I’ve envisioned at night in bed when my mind is racing but I’m no where near good enough at programming to make it a reality. Please continue development and I’ll definitely purchase a copy.

You are making the solution of the future! Ive been frustrated with the file managing system for so long, and always wanted a tagging system, and your video sold me on the idea! I love the whole idea presentation. The editing and script was fantastic! you even compare to other apps not just to break down ideas, but show how they fall short compared to TagStudio. Sending much love, coffee and rubber duck sessions your way! ❤ I’m working hard to learn java and python and not once did I even think of creating my own File System! I’m thankful to all of your research, Kudos to you❤ hope to see you go far :)

Please don't stop working on your app. Great work as always!

I have been searching for such a file organization tool for YEARS. On top of it, in recent months I've started sorting and backing up my extended family's photos and memories and I've ran into these exact problems when trying to find the most intuitive way to sort and tag different photos for future viewings. I hope to someday use your organizer for these purposes, good luck in your journey!

I've been looking all year for something like this! Can't wait to try this out!

It really takes guts to show off your unfinished project and at the same time show the world the already finished alternative, which is basically your "opponent". My respect for that. When I did my projects and was not done yet, I felt bad if friends said they just found this amazing :D

I feel like you would really like Hydrus! It looks janky - sure, but it works really well and runs an SQL under the hood, so its really fast to use. A lot of features, and a lot of community support.

Omg this is EXACTLY what I have been looking for for years. I was even planning on programming my own "Better Explorer" app because I couldn't find anything suitable, just like you. I hope you'll release your software to the public once you feel it's ready. Can't wait!

This is really cool, I have always had issues keeping all my files organized poperly... specially when stuff is seperated in different folders based on different things, while still needing to be linked, to a point i started using things like Notion, obsidian, Evernote, etc te keep track of this stuff. this file organizer sounds like exactly what i have needed for years

For a good few years I've been pondering making this (for exactly organizing my memes aswell!), but I always ended up just leaving it in my backlogs. I'm so glad someone finally did it :)

It's funny how I was thinking about this exact same thing today morning while downloading some videos I wanted to link to my Obsidian - but not wanting to overpopulate my Vault with media files I won't really watch that much. I think I want to be like you when I grow up lol. Amazing editing, amazing idea and I know it's going to pay off!

As someone that is dealing with TB of data for images, videos, renders... The idea of DUPLICATING my files in eagle is nightmarish. TagStudio sounds perfect for my needs. Subscribed for updates!

I have wanted to make an obsidian alternative and this has opened my eyes on how to execute. So all I have to say is THANK YOU! This is so awesome and I cant wait to see more.

OPEN SOURCE THIS CRAP NOW, WE NEED IT Maybe for me one important thing would be mobile support becouse i barely download images to my pc, but this project is incredible indeed

your channel is basically guaranteed to succeed at this point. just don't leave the platform for half a year :D

You've solved what's been bothering me for the last 10 years... praise the author!!

This software is the kind of software that i have been looking for years, kudos for the development and keep the spirit high until release, this software has so much potential.

Wow, i remember us having a brief exchange about eagle in your first community post. Love how the video turned out and that you highlight the absurdity of eagle's way of storing things in this video.

Your approach to facing a program that promises a similar approach to your own is the best one that you could take Since its already a consolidated program with a userbase, it is as simple as making a google search to understand what the users are doing, how, and what are the pros and cons of the whole thing. It serves as material for a preemptive User Experience analysis. Keep up the good work. Looking forward to that Obsidian integration

Such a fun video! I appreciate you bringing Eagle to my attention, this is something I need in my life and when/if you get TagStudio out and about for public use, I'll absolutely be putting my money down on the table. Best of luck with it and I hope you do an update video soon!

Just found your channel. I really enjoyed it. The story, bgm, and visuals are done soo smooth, love it

As a fellow mess I clicked from the title. But I stayed because you're an excellent presenter and the video was beautifully made.

There's also a little tool which supports tagging (primarily for images) called Hydrus; a cool piece of kit but with the exact same critical downside of Eagle - duplicating files to keep them 'safe'. If you're needing a tagging and management system to deal with an unworkable amount of data, chances are that data is quite bulky too. Duplicating 200GB+ of files? That's a preeeeetty big ask. As soon as you brought it up I was gonna give it a look but the fact it duplicates files is an immediate unworkable dealkiller. If you avoid that problem, then you'd have the exact thing I've been looking for since forever, purely because it doesn't have that (and the other) mentioned downsides of things which do this already. Edit: I didn't realize your channel was so small because of the high production quality of the video, lol. The presentation style and flair you've got going is excellent.

I've been struggling with tags and organization in my past, with Evernotes and hashtag plain text file and much more... until I no longer could keep up with it anymore. But it seems this is the holy grail of all tagging, and I hope to see it to full fruition. Also subscribed this channel, after seeing all the beautiful rendition, humor, and techie side that I can relate to.

oh my god a thing like this would make my life so much easier. I hope this project goes far, because I would definitely use it. I'll be keeping an eye on it.

Most Unix filesystems have something called "Extended file attributes" and NTFS has something called "Alternative File Streams". Both these features are a solution to the sidecar file problem and OSes use it to e.g. mark a file as downloaded from the internet. Even if you ended up with a Vault approach you could use it to add a unique id to files so name changes don't result in lost tags.

I will try to not exaggerate but you are literally my hero. Please keep doing this.

HOW ARE YOU THIS TALENTED ??!!??? - obsidian ✅ - blender✅ - god tier editing ✅ - humor ✅ - making a insane software from scratch ✅ Damn.

Haha this has come full circle; I was just starting to work on my own tag-based file manager with a tag system very similar to yours, albeit as a PWA-adjacent design focused on image gallery display and good UX. It's good to see you're continuing with your own originality! I think I'll do the same too!

We seriously need this! Good luck on further development, I hope to see another vid on this in the future!

As someone who tried to go down this road years ago when it came to trying to organize and sort the hundreds of hours of video and photos I came to the same frustrating conclusion. I eventually just landed on the acceptance that I will just have to have insanely good folder structure and organizing. If you made this available for Linux (all of my videos and photos are hosted on a self hosted server) this would be a game changer for me personally.

It's always awesome to see projects evolving. Don't let just similar ones stop you - especially if their potential seems kinda wasted

I literally just started looking around for something like this. I can't wait to see your release.

the ending really summed up the entire video, i love ur editing style man!

God Damn it's been such a long time since I've watched something this High Quality on KZfaq I just know there was Huge efforts put in this video

Keep us updated! Your work is absolutely awesome and we all need TagStudio :)

this has been on my mind for weeks. finally just found the time to start working on this idea, so I looked into it for a bit and the algorithm just gave me this video. i got the same feeling as you had with eagle but its ok since it was still in the idea phase. please release this!!!

This is my first time ever coming across this channel, and I am glad KZfaq recommended me this video. I used to have a similar problem in the past where I had way too many things saved (I still do) and it was near impossible to find the exact things that I needed. I did think of making a program myself, but I was far too lazy to do so. What you are making is the exact thing that I wanted, an app that can categorize files by tags and have the ability to search by filtering tags and / or extra (meta)data that I specify (such as title, description, etc). Of course, my idea was as simple as having multiple tags, but this is far greater than anything that I could have imagined. I will also be honest about one thing. Eagle does seem like a solid alternative (and I'll have to admit that design-wise and feature-wise, it is spectacular), but like you said, it doesn't really cover what **you** need it for. Quite frankly, it doesn't cover what **I** need it for either. The fact that it stores copies of the pictures is a turnoff for me. Not only that, but moving files or renaming them has the side effect of possible disconnection from its data. If I were given a choice between Eagle and the program that you are making, I would 100% pick your program (and that is what I will do if you plan on making it public). Finally, because this is your personal program, you have the liberty to customize it however you'd like, whether that means a different UI or functionality. If you plan on making it open-sourced as well, then in my eyes (and in most programmers' eyes), it will have won over Eagle by a landslide. Plus, if you plan on making it open-sourced, you have the open-sourced community helping you add features which will eventually surpass whatever "competition" you have. Overall, amazing video and amazing product. I am amazed by how deeply you thought about the tagging system and how much effort was put into it. I cannot wait to see the finished result. Two questions though, are you planning on making it public, and if so, do you plan on making it a paid product, or a free open-sourced project?

Being frustrated by all the solutions already available out there is the biggest driving force to code a tool. I needed a fast and powerful image organization app myself and every 3rd party tool I've tried was a nuisance at best. I decided to develop my own and I basically abandoned the project now, because it already offers the functionality I needed. It is in the "press wrong thing at wrong time and it explodes" state but having deep understanding of the codebase allows me to avoid any issues. Been using it for my professional work for months and never had any problems with it. Being able to code your own workflow solutions that will perfectly match your mind is the best thing about being a programmer. It's nice to see TagStudio pretty much aligning with my ideas as well. Centralized database for metadata storage and powerful tag system for navigation is exactly what I needed - no messy sidecar files, no embedded data that can be randomly destroyed by other apps. I will definitely check it out and use it as an inspiration for my own software. Nice work!

I’m not a programmer, developer, or anything of the sort, but I love seeing projects like this.

super interesting to see this video. i also always had the same issue with my files and am writing on a tagging programming myself. interesting enough, windows had this feature in the past where you could tag your files but seemingly abandoned it. good work. much inspiration for me to continue working myself on my program too!

This is the first project I have seen that I am genuinely interested in contributing to if it goes open source. I have never heard of Eagle, but I'm already starting to love your vision more.

loving your videos...really helpful

I swear I had the same idea but since I have no clue about programming I was lost, THANK GOD YOU SHOWED UP!!!

I actually thought about the exact same problem for a while. Please please go on with that project!

Hey, I'm one of the creators of the Eagle videos you have mentioned towards the end there and just wanted to say.. what a journey! 😮 Great video. 👍 I remember myself being in the exact situation. Started brainstorming on how to make my own tagging solution and almost hired another developer to help me out with it as I am more of a web dev myself - only to find out about Eagle. 😅 Let me be clear here. I think that some still don't quite understand the benefits of the files being "duplicated" inside of an Eagle library. Once you import them, they will sit in their unique folder for the rest of their life unless you delete them. This is absolutely amazing as you can organize your file into multiple folders or add various tags inside of Eagle without ever changing the physical location of the file itself. My library has more than 200.000 files and searching takes less than a second. The results are immediate every single time! In a perfect world, file systems on Windows or Mac would behave just like the Eagle App, where moving a file from one location to another wouldn't unlink your files from Obsidian, DaVinci Resolve, etc. This would only be possible if the file itself kept track of its metadata like in which folders it is saved, what sorts of tags are added and so on without changing its root location. Eagle does all of this for you on top of your existing file system and the devs have promised to make the application open-source in case the company behind it goes bankrupt. Oh, and did I mention that it has a duplicate finder? There's a good chance you have many duplicates in your existing folders. If you import everything into Eagle, duplicates will only be saved once but still point to the folders these files where saved in previously. Let's just say you had a large 10GB video in 5 folders for whatever reason. Inside of Eagle, it would still be in those 5 folders, but only take space for 10GB instead of 50GB. On top of that, Eagle 4.0 comes with its own plugin system and all users are eagerly awaiting more devs to jump the ship to accelerate what this awesome piece of software can do already. I have seen plugins from other devs for upscaling with AI, compression of files to different formats like webp straight from Eagle and a lot more. There is an active discord group that people can join to talk to other devs and Eagle and I will soon publish more tutorials about the app and how I personally use it as a video creator. Keep it up. Amazing quality content! ❤

This seems like a fantastic application idea for those of us who are very nitpicky, if you want more hands on the project, you can think about opensourcing it. I would absolutely like to help.

The eye candy in this video is on a whole nother level! For real, top notch quality content right here

This is a very good program idea. I am a developer myself and I find that non perfect but fully custom programs are the way to go for me. So keep pushing it. You are up for something that can become huge.

I am amazed by how much effort went into this video. The production quality and subtle use of 3D assets are great!

I haven't even watched the video yet and omg I've been doing the exact same thing, the past few months I been trying to rethink how to look for files and folders semantically, and the first couple things that came to mind were storing info in the file's metadata but then that just isn't good enough for videos where I wanna store transcriptions, vector data, links, and tags that are linked with other tags, so then my best option was to build a database where all the nots, tags, transcriptions for videos and all other stuff is stored on the database, along with a reference property that points to the file, but this is where I got a little lost, not knowing how to maintain this reference after the file is moved. I feel like the folder structure is not good at all for finding things. The only use for folder structure is categorizing very distinct things on the surface, like maybe an archive folder, a school folder and a projects folder, but even then, I often forget whether the thing I want was a school project or a personal project, so going back and fourth through folders is just really time consuming. I love your work, I found your channel 2 weeks ago and your Obsidian vault inspired me to work on mine, and this video couldn't reach me at a better time than now, the past week I've been building the file explorer and I've been hitting roadblocks, trying to rethink file management as a whole, and I bet I will find very invaluable information here. Edit: I'm 8 minutes in, I fully understand and feel the exact same as you when it comes to picking out the existing solutions. They are just NOT GOOD ENOUGH for me LMAO

Great video! I was looking for something like that for a while now. The idea of organizing things with tags is brilliant!

Dude if you get this up & running as you want, this will be GAME CHANGING KIND OF AWESOME. I need this.

The sidecar files approach seemed a good idea to not tamper the files and changing their checksum. One of the issues that you mentioned (needing to move the sidecar file alongside the original file) would be solved using a FUSE filesystem. TL;DR: FUSE is a filesystem that you can program yourself to do whatever you want whenever you open, modify, or delete any file. You could make one that moves de sidecar file alongside the original file itself. You can hide the sidecar file itself to avoid other programs to tamper with it. I have seen a cross platform implementation, is called RClone, which basically mounts cloud storages (like mega, Dropbox, google drive), making it able to access all these files with any file explorer. You can also mounts additional "layers", like a FUSE filesystem that encrypts all the files put in a folder (is what i use to encrypt all my files stored in Mega). Though, the final approach you took looks good enough, is better having it done that daydreaming about a proper way but out of my skill boundary to do it😂. Love the video.❤

Something I learned from developing a few open source applications is to not get discouraged because someone did it first and maybe even better. If anything I find it encouraging, eventually getting close in features and then even doing some things better, or at least what feels better to me. I think there is a very good reason many open source apps have acronym names starting with YA for yet another.

I NEED THIS SO BADLY OMG THANKS YOU I've been searching for a software like this for years

Oh my god, I've been cooking the same software idea in my brain for a couple of month now! I need this so much :)

This is the most anti ai/privacy app I’ve seen in ages. Thank you 👀👀👀

Is this going to be open source?

I love this project, instant subscribe. Can't wait for the release!