
Ask HN: Personal Database Tool? - pockettanyas
I&#x27;m looking for a tool where I can dump content (images, notes, quotes, names of movies), tag each item with multiple tags (&quot;book&quot; &quot;completed&quot; &quot;5 stars&quot;), and then search for the content by tag (&quot;show me all books I tagged with 5 stars&quot;). Is there a good tool I can use for this?
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noobly
Emacs Org-Mode!

To expand:

>dump content (images, notes, quotes, names of movies)

The images I would keep in relevant logs/wikis, or a timestamped/datetree
journal (in it's own file, a header, or a subheader - whatever's more
suitable/comfortable). I mostly save images for fun and logging purposes
though. The notes I would keep under a (tagged) header that it belongs too, or
in the datetree diary if it's personal. Same with the quotes. I keep names of
movies I should watch under a (tagged) 'media' header in my tasks.org file (my
other org files are wiki.org and archive.org, fwiw).

>tag each item with multiple tags ("book" "completed" "5 stars")

Tags are a built-in feature, but for the '5 stars' portion, you can go a step
further and assign a key-value property to an item, say 'STARS:' and a value,
like '5'.

>search for the content by tag ("show me all books I tagged with 5 stars")

And this would be done by doing a search, a tag search, with this syntax
specifically: `+books&+STARS="5"`

It's a very flexible system!

~~~
arduinomancer
Is there any way to use org-mode on mobile? I feel like the best solution
would be something where you can take notes on the go too

~~~
noobly
I use Emacs with Termux on Android. You can use the volume buttons as modifier
keys, so it’s not so bad. Other solutions like Orgzly and Beorg exist, but I
haven’t tried them personally.

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goohex
Airtable [https://airtable.com/](https://airtable.com/)

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tugberkk
I know this is not the answer you are looking for, but Microsoft Excel (or a
spreadsheet program) can help you with this, except images.

However, notes, quotes, movie names etc. can all be listed in a spreadsheet
and can be searched, listed, filtered, etc.

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scrappyjoe
A few years ago there was an OSS tool called Tagspaces that did exactly this.
It was great, and briefly replaced Evernote for me.

At the time I used it quite successfully to manage research material across a
range of projects; it ultimately hit a wall because it was an electron app
that consumed huge amounts of RAM.

However, they are still around and appear to have moved away from electron so
you may have more luck now.

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flukus
There a re CLI tagging tools like this: [https://tmsu.org/](https://tmsu.org/)

It's mostly driven by folders and symlinks, so you could create your own with
a few shell scripts.

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jesterson
I'd suggest to try Notion and AirTable. Notion is slightly more then just
personal database, AirTable might be useful if you like working with
tables/databases.

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gexla
Take a look at Perkeep.

[https://perkeep.org/](https://perkeep.org/)

You can also do a search here for the name to see other posts on the project.

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lovelearning
Most note taking tools allow all that - organize content, tag, and search.
They differ in user experience. Try Evernote, OneNote, Zotero, but there are
many more.

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SanchoPanda
Recoll search engine is a mature, robust, and battle tested solution. Set up
is fairly straightforward and there a webui available as well.

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bdibs
Check out Bookstack
[https://www.bookstackapp.com](https://www.bookstackapp.com)

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tmaly
I could imagine a simple cli with S3 or some other key value cloud storage
could be used to accomplish this.

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lagerstedt
Try using a text file and grep?

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jvvlimme
Notion.so?

