What is the difference between a folder and a tag?

A folder holds feeds, and a tag holds articles. You read feeds in folders as articles come in, and you tag the articles you want to keep, from any feed, to find them again later.

Read feeds in folders

A folder groups feeds by subject, so opening it shows the latest articles of every feed in it. Articles arrive in a folder on their own, and they're marked as read after 30 days (with Pro you can shorten that). Folders sit in the sidebar under Feeds, and you fill them by dragging feeds in or with Add to folder in a feed's right-click menu. A feed can be in several folders.

Keep articles with tags

A tag is a label you put on an article you choose, whatever feed it came from. Click Add tags under the article, or press T, and type a new tag or pick an existing one, as how to tag an article shows. A tagged article stays in the tag until you remove the tag from it, and an article can carry several tags. Your tags are listed in the sidebar under Saved, where Manage tags opens a page with every tag, its number of articles and a Pin this tag in the sidebar switch, and All tagged articles shows them together. See where to find your tagged articles.

An example

Put your industry's news sites in a folder named Industry and read it every morning. When an article is worth keeping for a report, tag it Research. Weeks later, the Research tag holds every article you set aside, whichever feed it came from, as the video shows.

Tag articles automatically

With Pro, a rule can tag new articles for you: give it a keyword condition and the Assign tag action, and every matching article is tagged as it arrives. Suggested tags, also Pro, offer tags based on the article's text.

Common features

A folder and a tag can't have the same name. Both can become an output feed, an RSS or JSON feed or an HTML clip, that other people or your website can read. Search covers both: Search in on the Search page takes one folder or one tag. See also Folders and tags.

Folders and tags work on every plan. Rules, suggested tags, output feeds and the unread duration are Pro features.