Tagging is the most important concept in ManicTime, you use it to keep track of how you spent your time. All the data ManicTime collects, should help you figure out when you were working on some task.

When you want to tag some time, you must first select it. You can click on Add tag button without a selection and enter the time manually, but this is slow and inaccurate. 

The best way to select time in ManicTime is to drag on the timelines (hold down left mouse button while moving the mouse over the timelines). While you are moving your mouse over the timelines, you will notice a tooltip which tells you more about the underlying activity. Mouse will snap to starts and ends of activities so you can easily select whole activities. 

If you want your selection rounded to a minute, you can drag on the time timeline (time bar displayed just above the timelines), mouse will snap to minutes, so the final selection will be rounded to the full minute. 

You can also select time by checking checkboxes in the details or the summary view below the timelines.

Once you select some time, click on down arrow at the end of selection or Add tag button. 

Before you start with tagging, take some time to think about how you want to structure tags. Imagine that tags represent your work. Our suggestion is to go from most general to the more specific ones.

So for example if I asked you what you were doing for the past two hours, you might answer, 'I was working on design for our new site'. You could tag this as 

Our company, WebSite, Design

Or you might say 'I was on a support call for Client X'. So tag would be 

Client X, Support, Phone call

Or you might say 'I was at a meeting with Client X where we discussed deadline for Project Y'. So tag would be 

Client X, Project Y, Deadline discussion

Or you might say 'I was taking a lunch break, I ate at McDonalds and had a Big mac'

Lunch break, McDonalds, Big mac

 If you don't want to track what you ate, you could also just say 

Lunch break, McDonalds

Similarly, maybe you don't care about where you ate, just that you were on a Lunch break, so you would use

Lunch break

You can include as many tags as you want, just make sure you keep the same order, it will make things easier in the future. So if Client X is always starting tag, make sure it is always the first tag when you work for Client X.

So now that we know the theory behind tagging time, how do we tag time? Once you select some time, you can:

• Click on Add tag button to open Add tag window. Type the tag into the textbox
• Type Alt-T to open Add tag window. Type the tag into the textbox
• Click the down arrow on the selection and choose one of the previously used tags (or right click on selection to get the same menu)
• Click on one tag to select it, type Ctrl-C, then select some time and type Ctrl-V
• Use tag shortcuts

Edit, Delete a tag

To edit a tag, right click a tag on the Tag timeline and choose Edit.
To delete a tag, right click a tag on the Tag timeline and choose Delete.

For tag reports see TimeSheet