How to Select Multiple Files on Mac – Copy, Move or Paste

How to Select Multiple Files on Mac – Nearly every Mac user knows how to choose a single file in the Mac OS X Finder, but I have a number of users perplexed by the collection of files.

How to Select Multiple Files on Mac – Copy, Move or Paste

How to Select Multiple Files on Mac - Copy, Move or Paste

Most of the confusion is that we do not know the primary methods of choosing groups of files, and that’s what we’re trying to clear up by focusing on the primary means of choosing groups of files: clicking and dragging, clicking shifts, clicking commands, and selecting all. All are slightly different; however, they are useful for moving or sending files to another Mac or iOS device for files around Finder.

Each of these tricks functions to pick file groups in any view of the Finder folder, be it button, row, column, or cover flow.

How to select multiple files on Mac?

In macOS or Mac OS X, we will cover 4 different ways to simultaneously select multiple files, including using click modificatory, dragging, and keyboard shortcuts. In all iterations of Mac OS system software, such multi-file search tricks work.

Pick Adjacent File Group with either Click+Drag or Shift+Click.

Several files can be quickly accessed in Mac OS X using the Click+Drag function, which acts as it sounds; click and hold the press when dragging a selection box into a browser to pick further files.

Command+Click enables you to choose multiple files in a Finder view that are not next to each other. This can be as different as appropriate, whether it is any other file, a file at the top of a list display, two files at the edge, or any other variation between them.

When opening a new file(s), you will navigate through a Finder window and pick further files as you go down.

Command+Clicking can also work to remove and unselect already selected items. For eg, you can use Command+A to select anything, or a Shift+Click to select a large group of files, then use Command+Click to select a few files that you don’t want to actively search in the community.

Select All Files in a Window with Command+A

Select All is fairly self-explaining, selecting everything in a specified Finder pane, and pressing Command+A, the Select Everything keyboard shortcut, is just a matter.

This has been around for a very long time, and apart from the drawing triangle, dealing with groups of files is probably the most widely known trick. You can also pick and file in a browser for those who are not fans of the keyboard shortcuts by pulling down the Edit button and clicking ‘Pick Everything.’

Using Select All in combination with Command+Clicking to unselect items you don’t want is really useful, as stated in the previous trick.

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Ultimately, it can be easier to work with several files if the Finder Status Bar is allowed at all times, as it updates as selected items, including a live list of all total records. You will find it, and more Finder tricks here.

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