A nice little treasure trove of Mac tips, all of them making use of the option key. As always, you may know most of these, but take a look, there might be a gem in here that’s new to you.
My favorite:
When you copy a file in your Mac’s Finder and go to Paste it, this will create a copy of the original file. There’s no way to “Cut” a file before pasting it to move it, as there is on Windows and Linux.
Instead, when you want to move a file, copy it normally. Next, go to the folder you want to move it to, right-click (or Control-click), and hold Option when the context menu appears. The normal “Paste Item” menu item will become “Move Item Here.”
This works for many other menu items, too. “Get Info” becomes” Show Inspector.” “Arrange By” becomes “Sort By.” “Open in New Tab” becomes “Open in New Window.” “Quick Look” becomes “Slideshow.” “Open With” becomes “Always Open With.”
Enjoy!
You can also use it with the basic ⌘C and ⌘V! So instead of using ⌘V to paste a copy of the file, you push ⌘⌥V, and Finder will move it!
I thought Yosemite added support for good ol’ ⌘X to cut? (Or maybe that’s TotalFinder smoothing over the cracks for me.)
Nope. And if you think about it, cutting a file is a really bad idea. In theory, once something’s cut it resides only on the clipboard. Cutting or copying something else loses it forever.
Yes, granted, files in the Finder don’t have to work that way. But now you’re introduced two different models for the clipboard, and people may think the Finder method applies to large, dangerous-to-lose items in other applications. And they’ll be surprised and potentially lose data when other applications don’t handle it as Finder does. And that’d be Apple’s bug.
Apple’s Move Here approach is rational, it’s just too bad it’s a bit hard to discover.
For what it’s worth, my favourite Optionism is Get Info. I think it changes to Show Inspector. The Inspector is a single, floating window that follows your selection.
The reason I only think the keyboard shortcuts are this way is because I like the Inspector so much more that I’ve swapped the keyboard shortcuts in System Preferences for them.
I hate to say it, but I like Windows’ approach. Cutting a file merely marks it as “ready to be moved” — the file stays in place but turns translucent. If you don’t paste it, it remains in place and returns to full opacity.
But you’re probably right that it would be weird if cutting files worked differently than cutting text (where the text is removed and could be permanently lost) for many/most users. Perhaps a “Move…” option would suffice just so you don’t have to preemptively open both the source and destination folders before attempting the move.
There is a Move. 🙂