100 Tips #20: Cutting & Copying Files

Giles Turnbull ()

20100630-copypaste.jpg

On Windows, it’s easy to cut and paste files and folders between locations; but that’s one of the first things people notice missing from Mac OS X.

The Windows system works just like cutting and pasting text or pictures inside a document, which is why it’s so popular. People understand what’s happening when hit the “cut” command and the file disappears – they know it hasn’t been deleted, but that it’s gone to the clipboard, ready to be pasted elsewhere.

On OS X, things work differently. In short, there is no built-in way of “cutting” a file to the clipboard. But you can copy stuff.

Control-click, or right-click, on any file and you’ll see the contextual menu; one of the options there is “Copy (filename)” – just click that to copy the file to the clipboard. This works with folders too. Then browse to where you want to put the copied file, right-click again, and choose “Paste Item”.

So, copy-and-paste works just as you’d expect. The only functionality you’re really missing from Windows is cut-and-paste. The Mac equivalent would be to simply move the file by dragging it from one location to another.

DON'T MISS
Filerr Detects Incompatible Mac File Names for Windows File Sharing

If you really desperately miss the ability to cut files, shareware utility moveAddict might be useful. For five bucks, it adds this feature (plus a few others, including Windows-like folder merging – which we’ll cover in another post).

(You’re reading the 20th post in our series, 100 Essential Mac Tips And Tricks For Windows Switchers. These posts explain to OS X beginners some of the most basic and fundamental concepts of using a Mac. Find out more.)

14 comments »

About the author

gilest

Giles Turnbull is a freelance writer in England. He writes for the Press Association and The Morning News. He has a website you can ignore and a Twitter account you needn't follow.

(sorry, you need Javascript to see this e-mail address)| Read more posts by .

Posted in 100 Tips, 7, Tips & Tricks |

  • TheBrew

    Does anyone know why cut isn’t implemented? I’m really trying to convince myself that the Finder is better than the Explorer. I just fail every time. I work so much faster in the Explorer.
    Are we talking patents? Policies? Or just genuine Redmond disgust?

    Cheers!

  • eric

    TheBrew,

    I love the finder. I’ve tried Pathfinder, but it did really more than I needed. With TotalFinder, I get tabbed finder windows, and I’m thinking about playing with DefaultFinderX, which has all sorts of favorites places and recent places.

    The one thing that I wish Finder did was allow me to set my default finder window to a SmartFolder of the folders opened in the last 12 hours. Odds are really good that whatever I’m looking for is something I recently looked at.

  • dj_aris

    If you want to move files from one volume to another, you may as well hold down the CMD key before releasing the mouse button; the files will be moved instead of copied.

  • Dreamwall

    So what does the “cut” command do? All I see is that it moves the file to the trash. What is the difference between this and the “move to trash” command?

  • http://gilest.org Giles Turnbull

    Dreamwall: in the circumstances we’re talking about – when you’ve got a file (or files) selected in a Finder window – there *is* no Cut command. It’s something that newcomers from Windows look for, and wonder why they can’t find.

    Hence the options in this post (and in the comments – thanks to everyone else for their contributions).

  • Conrad

    When I first read this I thought you were crazy. Of course the Finder can *cut* files… but no. It cannot. I’ve had my Mac for almost a year now and I didn’t even realize. I wonder if it will irritate me more now that I know?? Hmm.

  • MacTex

    Hi Giles,

    Thanks for the tips. I’ll be interested to see what you have to tell us about Spotlight.

  • MacTex

    Hi Again,

    I found your tip on Spotlight. It was the tip on Spaces that you were gong to publish.

    Thanks

  • Don Pope

    @Dreamwall

    “Cut” is not the same as “Move to Trash”
    “Cut” is like “Copy” except that when you “Paste” the files are moved instead of copied.

  • open0source

    I haven’t missed Cut too much since I’ve learned to use spring-loaded folders. It is slower because you don’t really have keyboard access while you’re holding onto the files, but it works well enough.

  • http://myspace.com/ldblo kekomixtle

    Why cut and paste when you can drag and drop???

  • ged

    if this is the only difference a newbie from windoz is confused about they are doing very well!

  • http://tommypetersbicycles.blogspot.com Tommy Peters

    TheBrew – “Or just genuine Redmond disgust?”. The architecture of the Mac OS is clearly on a higher loft, hence disdain, for the one down below, does not apply.

    Perhaps it’s a force of a Mac habit – a peculiarity of style. Notice the secondary click is not default unless the user says so.

  • Leo

    I bought my first Mac last year and I missed this one the most, but I understand why Finder doesn’t implement “cut” like Windows Explorer does: Mac OS X would have to implement cut *literally* in order to make sense, and they know it would be more trouble than it’s worth.

    Think about it this way: if you cut text in a word processor, the text is *removed* from the working document and placed in the clipboard. If you either, cut another piece of text or just decide not to paste it, your text is gone forever.

    This is the real reason, and it helps to understand why replacing a folder with another one of the same name on Mac OS X works the way it does: “to replace” means literally that.

    I grew accustomed to work with Explorer, but the Mac OS X way is semantically correct.