With past versions, there was a column in the tags (layers) window that allowed you to set a certain one current. I am running 21.0.391 and there is only a visibility and name column. How do you set the current tag? Do you have to draw your model and then retroactively change portions to certain tags?
On a Mac, the column still exists but it is to the far right.
Most experienced users do not change the current tag from Untagged. If you do, you tend to run into all sorts of difficulties (unless you are very well organized!).
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We are an AutoCAD-based office so our mentality is everything on it’s correct layer/tag. If this no longer is easily done in Sketchup, I guess we’ll change how our models are created. Really comes in handy though when clients want to see 3 different versions of the same model during meetings and you can just turn things on/off - have used numerous times. 2020 seemed to handle this better.
The functionality is still the same, but as @simoncbevans is saying, you are best served leaving the default tag as active, and assigning groups/components to other tags as they are created (this has been and still is the ideal SU workflow).
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You can do exactly what you want in Sketchup but you would normally use scenes to create different versions (though there are a number of different ways).
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You do this by assigning your groups/components tags (entity info). Much easier than remembering to click on/off specific tags every time you draw.
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That can still be true in SU. But apply Tags ONLY to groups or components, not to edges or faces (with very rare exceptions when you understand what you are doing and why). You can also apply Tags to non-geometric entities like text, dimensions, and section planes, to control their visibility - usually saving the result in Scenes - which may optionally also preserve other properties like camera position, view, hiding or showing selected objects (independently of tagging), styles, highlighting profiles and/or endpoints, and other properties.
And leave the default tag as Untagged (almost) always. Draw all lines and edges with Untagged set as the default.
Be aware, though, that if you explode a tagged group or component, the exploded geometry will have the parent object’s tag assigned. So while the exploded geometry is still selected, go to Entity Info and reset its tag to Untagged.
In SU, Tags only control visibility of objects, and line style of edges contained in a tagged object (group or component).
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Thanks for all the responses. It’s just a different mindset than we’re used to. Gotta remember it’s not AutoCAD 
. We do create CAD blocks this way so we just need to translate that to our Sketchup models.
Absolutely! AutoCad it is NOT.
You will find that a lot of architecture based SU users here (myself included) came from a 2D CAD background and so had to get used to the different way SU works. It’s actually a better system as you really never need think about which “layer” is active and that pen symbol stays in the same place all the time.
There are lots of other things for AC users to get used to, such as lines being edges, copying as a sub-species of moving, and mirroring being done differently. Oh, and thinking of a balloon as a “solid”!
Yeah, we’ve used Sketchup for several years now but have started implementing it more. Have to dust off the cobwebs.
Expand the Window like a big simoncbevans said, it’s the pencil icon. I find layers helpful when setting up scenes / design options in my experience, in addition to groups and components obviously. Cheers
Best practice is to leave Untagged active at all times. Give tags to groups and components but leave all geometry untagged. Following this rule there’s never any need to make other tags active, no chasing tags like you have to chase layers in other programs.
In my view this is a (it appears I cannot use the word I wanted to use!!!) ridiculously unnecessary change. It was much easier to create groups with the current layer option. Now you have to make sure you capture everything from maybe disparate tags before grouping, so that for instance when exploding a group for what ever reason you can then choose what to regroup onto which tag.
This is tinkering for no good reason, The software worked perfectly well with previous current layer option. The beauty of Sketchup was that it was simple to learn easy to use.
If this is a sign of things to come I am not interested.
All upgrades should make life easier - not more complicated.
Total nonsense.
The beauty of using the correct workflow which hasn’t changed with the name change from Layer to Tag is that you don’t have to chase after active layers/tags. Much easier and less prone to errors. If you prefer to do as you decribe, you can certainly do that. The name change is only that. It’s just a word.
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This is perhaps the clearest example I have read of someone not understanding how layers work, even before the name change to Tags.
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The response is insulting. I ABSOLUTELY understand how layers work. It is far far simpler to have a current layer set and then group than gathering who knows how many untagged items or differently tagged items to group. Also having loads of untagged items close together or overlaying makes tagging far from easy and tiresome. Current layer was simple. Untagging and tagging is overly complicated.
It seems to me that ever since the buy-out Sketchup is going down the same old route as Autocad and many other CAD softwares - making unnecessary changes for no good reason which simply make the software less user-friendly.
Apparently you don’t understand how they work in Sketchup. You are clearly making it more complicated than it needs to be. It seems there’s no point in trying to help you further, though.
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I’m sorry if you found my response insulting, I was simply commenting on the fact it was the clearest incorrect explanation I had ever read.
If you described a banana to me and then told me it was a violin I would have said the same thing.
Unfortunately your latest response also shows that you are working with layers/tags incorrectly.
Even the fact you think something has changed apart from the name proves that.
We are happy to help you, but demanding that you are right and the rest of us wrong will get you nowhere.
You may well absolutely understand how to use layers in autocad or photoshop or some other software, but you certainly are not using them as they were designed to be used in Sketchup.
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Sketchup uses Scenes for this.