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Bookmarks & Tags

Bookmarks and tags are the core annotation tools for building your investigation narrative within IRFlow Timeline.

Bookmarks and Tags showing tagged rows with context menu for applying DFIR tags like Suspicious, Lateral Movement, and C2

Bookmarks

Bookmarks let you flag individual rows as important for later review and reporting.

Adding Bookmarks

  • Click the star icon on any row to toggle its bookmark
  • Cmd+Click a row and select Bookmark
  • Bookmarks are stored per-tab in the SQLite database

Bulk Bookmarking

  • Open Actions > Bulk Tag / Bookmark to bookmark or tag rows by time range
  • Or Cmd+Click a row and use the bookmark option in the context menu

Viewing Bookmarks

  • Toggle Cmd+B to show only bookmarked rows
  • The tab badge shows the bookmarked row count
  • Bookmarked rows display a filled star icon in the grid

In Reports

Bookmarked rows are included in HTML reports with their full data. They appear in a dedicated "Bookmarked Events" section.

Tags

Tags are free-form labels you attach to rows for categorization. Each row can have multiple tags, and tags are color-coded for visual distinction. The Tags column is a full first-class grid column — you can sort, filter, and stack by tags just like any other column.

Adding Tags

  1. Cmd+Click a row
  2. Select Add Tag
  3. Type a tag name or choose from presets
  4. The tag appears as a colored chip in the Tags column

Tag Presets

IRFlow Timeline includes common DFIR investigation tags:

TagUse Case
SuspiciousGeneral suspicious activity
Lateral MovementEvidence of movement between hosts
ExfiltrationData exfiltration indicators
PersistencePersistence mechanism installation
C2Command and control communication
Initial AccessEntry point indicators
ExecutionMalicious execution events
Credential AccessCredential harvesting/dumping

You can also create custom tags — just type any name. IOC Matching automatically creates per-indicator tags (e.g., IOC: cmd.exe, IOC: 185.220.101.34) with orange coloring.

Bulk Tagging

By Time Range:

  1. Open Actions > Bulk Tag / Bookmark
  2. Select a start and end timestamp
  3. Choose or type a tag name
  4. All rows in the time range receive the tag

This is useful for marking an entire activity window (e.g., "Attacker Active 14:30-15:45").

Removing Tags

  • Cmd+Click a tagged row and select Remove Tag
  • Choose which tag to remove (if multiple)

Tag Colors

Each unique tag is assigned a color from the palette. Colors are consistent within a session and persist when saving/loading sessions.

Tags Column Features

The Tags column behaves as a full grid column with:

  • Sorting — click the Tags column header to sort rows by their tag values
  • Text filtering — type in the Tags filter cell to search for specific tags using SQL LIKE matching
  • Checkbox filtering — click the dropdown button in the Tags filter cell to select specific tags from a checkbox list
  • StackingCmd+Click the Tags header and select Stack Values to see tag frequency distribution
  • Column Stats — view tag statistics including total tagged rows, unique tags, and top values
  • Disable/enable — toggle the tag filter on/off without removing it (shown with strikethrough when disabled)

Filtering by Tag

  • Type in the Tags filter cell to filter by tag name
  • Use the dropdown checkbox filter to select one or more specific tags
  • Click a tag chip in a row to filter to rows with that tag
  • Combine tag filters with other filter types

In Reports

HTML reports include:

  • Summary count of tagged rows
  • Tag breakdown chips showing each tag and its count
  • Grouped tables showing rows organized by tag
  • Color-coded tag indicators matching the in-app palette

Built for the DFIR community.