Oh Gary, you saved me. I watched a few others before I found you and was totally confused by them. Your explanation for a new Mac user was just brilliant as I am finding it a hole new learning phase from 30 years of Windows. Subscribed.

whatever doubt that comes acorss, there's always some Gary's video to save the day. YOU ARE THE BEST MY FRIEND. Thanks!!

Windows guy who just added a Mac to the workflow. Moving files (not copying) on a Mac has been my last annoying mystery on the Mac Thanks for clearing that up!

immensely useful! You can't imagine how much time I spent looking for this precise feature of moving instead of pasting without success, until I found this video. Great job!

As a person who is blind this was great as the instructions were clear and concise, people who are blind and use screen readers like voice over on the mac have to commit every key command to memory so you can see this can lead to memorising hundreds of key commands/short cut keys so well done .

Clear, well-structured and with a helpful diagram. I've yet to find another Channel where the presenters match what you provide. Thank you.

It never fails. Whenever I think I already know a subject and don't need to watch the video but watch it anyway, I learn a lot of new things!

Gary, thanks so much for these videos. You are doing a huge service to the Mac community!

You always have such straight forward easy to understand videos that always give me the exact answer to my questions. Thanks so much. 👍

Thanks very much, Gary, for this excellent clarification of move/copy commands for files. Very helpful!

Perfectly clear and straight to the point. Thanks so much!

This was so helpful. I was trying to MOVE a file from one folder on my extral harddrive to another folder still on that same external harddrive, but it kept coping. Because it was a large fiiles It would take so long to copy and and eat up valuabe storage room. The trick to hold command while moving the file has saved me so much frustration. Thank you!

Thanks for pointing these out in your usual clear and concise manner. For me some of the choices Apple has made here are confusing especially with the move away from local to cloud storage. As you point out, going back to the basics and remembering that you can achieve the desired action in multiple ways is helpful. For me, knowing that there's a difference in functionality depending on the From vs To location, the optional Option or Command keys are the thing to try to remember. Another 6+ minutes well spent, thank you!

ABSOLUTELY GREAT CONTENT SUBSCRIBED!!! thank you very much for your in-depth and educational content that you take the time to creat and provide to the pc community

This was very helpful! I want to move video files from my Macbook to my external so I can free up space on my Mac. But you brought up a good point about having a backup in case the external hard drive fails or is lost.

Thank you so much, Clear and easy to follow.

Simple file management made easy. Thanks Gary.

From a Newb, thanks a million, clear and concise.

Thank you, Gary! I was so stuck on how to do this.

You’re seriously the best, thanks

Got it, thank you. It was a vague memory come to light.

3:20 - Thanks, regarding moving files.

Very helpful. Thank you Gary.

Thank you so much that was very helpful !

You are simply the best!

Super helpful, thanks!

perfect just what i needed

It’s curious how the commands are so contextual, ie it’s command or alt depending upon if it’s a local drive or external etc. It’s like six ways to Sunday with so many variables to remember. Thanks for the chart I may have to memorize it or print it out.

Very Useful Many thanks.

Thank you so much !

One of the most confusing operations in MacOS for someone coming from Windows. Thank you!

Hi, I have a specific situation. I have a folder with subfolders that have jpg files in. On windows i could search for jpg files and then copy jpg files from another folder to this search folder and replace the jpg-s in all subfolders. On a mac I cannot do that because it wont let me paste files in search window. Is there any solution for that? Thank you.

Great explanations again Sir. Best... B :) :) :)

Using the Shortcut App : how to make select file get selected(from anywhere) and 1-click move to the specific folder . Select File -> Move To > MyFolder

Great info

A very useful and informative video tutorial today! Thank you, Gary! 👏❤️

Hi Gary, I love your channel. Do you know how to fix the error -36 prompt? It happens every time I try to copy a folder, any folder, to an external hard disk, any external HD. I have hundreds of folders, and none of them will copy. I tried signing in and out of my Apple ID. It seems to work at first , but then failed. The only way it works if I change user. Any ideas?

very usful! thanks

Thanks bunches

Great video with very clear explanations, thank you! As others have mentioned, this is one of the most confusing/frustrating things for somebody coming from the Windows world. Wish Mac OS had a right click copy and right click paste option, not sure why they don't. Unless you use the keyboard shortcuts frequently you're not likely to remember them...Mac OS seems very reliant on keyboard shortcuts vs Windows.

Here's all the details...My 1TB Photos library is home on a 2017 4TB LaCie Rugged Mac format OS Extended (Journaled) to a 2023 to a 4TB SanDisk SSD formatted APFS. Does the difference in formatting present a problem? On 2021 MacBook Apple M1, 16GB, Ventura 13.3.1 Thanks!

Now it makes sense.

I cant believe I actually had to watch this video to deal with my new mac

If you have 2 finder windows open, and you drag and drop a file from one to the other, the Mac will sometimes (not always, I think) suddenly move the from folder towards the middle of the screen. It does this after you've started dragging and sometimes for me results in dropping the file into the same folder it's coming from. I think the Mac is trying to help, but I find it annoying. I want the folders to stay where they are unless I move them. Is there any way to tell the Mac not to do this?

Thanks as usual Gary. I share an iCloud drive folder with my wife and when she tries to CMD-C followed by Alt-CMD-V onto her own iCloud Drive folder it won't allow her. She has to physically drag the files between tabs or windows. Is that normal and is that a deliberate decision by Apple for some reason I wonder?

Thanks for this. Have you seen any issues/solutions for "operation cannot be complete because the item XXXXX is in use" error when trying to copy files/folders? I'm basically upgrading my secondary drive from a Samsung SATA SSD over to an NVME SSD for faster transfers. I have tried restarts, safe mode, changed permissions, disabled SIP, inserted the drive on another mac and still nothing works. I also have a few files that I cannot unlock no matter what I try. I can open some of them just fine but I cannot unlock, copy, or delete them. The drive was previously installed inside a Mac Pro(Mojave) and currently running in a thunderbolt chassis connected to my Mac Studio(Monterey). I've have no issues with the drive up until now that I need to copy over the files to a new SSD.

Please make a video about tap click and force click. which is better.

Good video, but it's only if you have a Mac. How about moving, and I really mean moving, not copying, photos from camera roll to a specific folder in the camera roll section on the IPhone? I know we can hide photos, but in this instance I just want to move (again, really move) certain photos to new folder(s). The IPhone (latest IOS version 16.1.2) doesn't really move photos, it just copies them / creates links in the new folder while the original stays in camera roll. Am I missing something or is this totally not feasible?? Thanks!!

Thanks what about Synchronize tool (free and part of MACOS) ??

I am copying my 1 TB Photos library from one external drive to a new external SanDisk SSD. It's been over 10 hours of "preparing to copy..." Is that normal for this size file or is it stuck?

This will work for photos also?

Unfortunatly, Monterey 12.4 will not move files from Desktop to Documents on the same drive. It will copy, every time, and no key combination alters that. Any ideas?

thank you! I have followed your advise, however, when I want to delete the files that I moved from my HD, once I moved them to EXT HD, they seems to disappear from my EXT. HD, why? any help would be appreciated - thanks!

I am trying to clean up many files. Several times when I am "copying files" from one hard drive to another the "skip" option doesn't show up if there will be a duplicate folder. Only Stop Keep Both and Replace, none of which I want. Ho can I get the skip option to show up?

Godsend!

With big files is it supposed to take long to move from a folder to a sd card?

I need to move files from my local drive on one macbook pro to another without using migration assistant, what is the best way to do this? The files are really large.

Greetings all. Please help, I'm looking to automatically transfer or copy media from the SD Cards onto my Mac Mini via card reader, without the use of keyboard and mouse. It needs to be an automated process as soon as the memory card is recognised by Mac. Thank you in advance!

One of the problems I'm encountering when using command A and then dragging to an external is that the next day I'll open a folder, and the folder will be empty. Not always, but sometimes. As you know I've been wanting to have a copy of everything on my computer on two external drives, as well as my time machine backups on another. Sometimes, too, when I drag things to another folder on my computer, things will start piling up in my trash bin. They don't disappear from my computer, so they are being pulled from my external drive to the trash. I'm trying to figure out why this keeps happening. I thought a non-time-machine drive was completely separate from my computer, like a second computer. In my case, whatever I'm doing, the external drive seems to be functioning WITH my computer, simply making it larger. If there's a cloud connection, could this be the reason?

how do you open 2 finder windows?

But if you use the terminal then mv or cp do precisely what you intend I.e. move or copy

Copy file but the file is locked 🔒 drag copy you get an error message erre code o same code with the command can't copy on the 🔒 file if you want to move the locked file to another place you need to input your password 🔑

You should do a youtube of getting gmail to now accept mac mail after May 30th on older macs (running older OS versions, etc.). Google in their stupidity never notified me of their changes to not allowing what they call less secure apps accept mail from their server. What I did to get around it which shows how stupid their policy is, was to create another gmail account and then forward my mail from my original account to that one and have my mac mail use that one. Essentially what was the point of their change!

Trying to drag folder from SD card to external drive and wont drop, why is this so hard compared to Windows.

EXCELLENT.... DO YOU HAVE A DIRECTORY OF KEYWORDS FOR YOUR VIDEOS, SO I CAN QUICKLY SEARCH ONLY YOUR CONTENT?

You're very good at what you do. Longtime PC user of 30 years. Is that possible? YES! I'm finding some things about the new Mac difficult like Cut n Paste, within a folder, and outside to another folder. But also I can't view my old movies saved as AVI's, or WMV, or MKV. I can't see the Thumbnails in "Finder". I have 1000's of video's. I don't want to set up individual snapshots from a Video, and set 1000's of Thumbnails. Also you can't even do this for AVI's. I want to quickly see all my Thumbnails of ALL video's within a Folder. It's not possible. Is there a 3rd party app?? I called AppleCare, they said I had to do each video thumbnail individually. In Windows Explorer you can see most video thumbnails, within a Folder, in a glance, without doing anything. Any work-arounds this problem Gary?

So helpful.. thank you so much 🫶🏾

I tried the Command + move and it always asks for a password to move it?

Really wish I’d have to stuck to windows. Mac stuff is so backwards.

Why tf Apple cant just give you the option to move the file to another folder when you right click on a file and the option to "move" the file is in the menu that pops up when you right click on the file???

What I don’t like is how it’s suddenly changing the dates of a file or photos to today instead of preserving the original time it was taken like it used to.

I really do not get why apple has made this so complicated and hard to remember and confusing. Why not just right clicking on the first file and make your selection right there copy or cut and go the second location and paste it just like windows.

Command key didnt work

Cut and paste on windows is much better

i feel like an idiot. never had to watch a youtube video to move files on window. why does apple make simple things complicated.

Gary, I wanted to ask you something. I've got an issue with some screenshots in my desktop which I wanted to move to a folder in order not to have a messy desktop full of screenshots but it indicates "preparing to move to..." but nothing happens! I've restarted my macbook air and shut it down but I'm still unaware of moving the files onto the folder I've created... what could I do? thanks in advance... love your work! Cheers from Madrid, Spain