What is the difference between application-specific, application-nonspecific, and user-specific tags?

Pushwoosh has two tag scopes, chosen when you create the tag. The scope decides where the value is stored.

General tags (device-level, default)

The value is stored per device (HWID), so every device holds its own value independently - even two devices belonging to the same person. This is the default (user_specific: false in the /addTag API). Most default tags collected by the SDK, such as City, Language and App Version, are device-level: for example City is written from GeoIP for the specific device on each app launch.

User-specific tags (profile-level)

The value is stored on the user profile (UserID) instead of the device (user_specific: true). When you set it by UserID it applies to all of that user's devices at once, which suits attributes that belong to the person rather than the handset - subscription tier, loyalty points, preferred language. Newly registered devices under the same UserID inherit these values.

What about "application-specific" tags?

Tags themselves are created once at the account level - /addTag creates a tag in your account and /listTags returns the account's tags - but the values are recorded per application, so the same tag can hold different values in two of your projects. The older "application-specific / application-nonspecific" wording and the application_specific API parameter are legacy and are no longer part of the documented API.

You cannot switch a tag between General and User-specific in the Control Panel. Contact support to migrate existing values.