Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today let me
show you the basics of using Drag and Drop on your Mac.
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Drag and Drop is one of the most basic skills that you need to master to use your Mac. Basically,
you're going to move your pointer to an item, like a file here in the Finder,
and then you're going to click and continue to hold down on the trackpad or mouse.
Then you can move and the item will move with the pointer. Then you move it to the location
where you want it to go and release your finger on the trackpad or mouse.
This is a drag and drop. So this is the most basic example. To move a file from one location
to another using two Finder windows. You can also drag and drop within a single Finder window. So
if I wanted to move that same file into this folder I can simply drag it into that folder.
There's a lot that goes on that can help you when you're dragging and dropping. For instance
if I were to do that again but hesitate above this folder it would eventually open up. This
is called Spring Loading. Now I'm in that folder. I can move down even further into another folder
and then drop the file in there. But you can also drag and drop to other locations. For instance,
you have all these locations in the Finder sidebar. You can drag and drop to one of those
as well. You could also select multiple items and drag them at the same time. The way to do
that is to use the Command key. Select your first item then hold the Command key down and select
another item. While you continue to hold the Command key down you could select several more
items. So now I have four items selected. I can now release the Command key and then drag any
one of those and all four will come together. So I can move all four of these to another folder.
In Icon View you could also click where there is no item and drag and a rectangle will form.
Anything that is under the rectangle will be selected. So I could select a whole group of
files like this and then drag and drop that group. This works in other Finder views as well. So let's
switch from Icon View to List View. Here we can see the files in List View and I could select one
and drag it into a folder, drag it to another Finder window. I could select multiple ones
using the Command key just like before. I could also select a file and then use the Shift key
and it will select a range in either List or Column View. Then I could drag that whole group.
But moving files around is just the beginning. You could also drag a file or other type of item
onto to something to perform an action. For instance in the second Finder window here
I'm going to go to the Applications folder. So now I see a list of all my applications. I can
open a file in an application by simply dragging and dropping it onto Pages and it will open it up
in Pages. But usually you don't open the Application's folder for that. Instead
you use the Dock at the bottom. So you can drag a file like this to one of these icons
for an application and it will open it up in that application. Now only the application's
that support that kind of file will work. So, for instance, TextEdit will work and Pages will work
and other apps that you have that will take text files like the Notes app will work as well.
Now it's really handy when you have documents that can be opened by multiple apps. For instance you
may have any image file and you could open an image file in Preview. But also you may have
an app like Pixelmator Pro, Acorn, or Affinity Photo. If you double click it will only open
it up in the default app. But if you drag and drop to that app in the Dock then you can select
the app each time you open the document. Different apps deal with the document in
different ways. For instance, let's drag this image file here into the Mail app.
What it's going to do then is open up a new composition window, put the image
there as an attachment, so Mail handles it differently than say an image editing app.
Now you can also drag files into the document windows for other apps. So, for instance, here I
am in Pages and I have a document open. If I want to insert an image in this document I could simply
drag the image directly into the document and it will insert it in there. The same thing works in
Mail. If I'm composing a message I can drag and drop an image into the message. In the Messages
app here, right in the middle of a conversation, I could drag and drop an image right to the message
area there and it inserts it in. But this also works going from App to App. So here I've got
the Photos App and I can browse through all my Photos. Then here I've got Mail. I'm composing a
message. I can drag and drop a photo directly from the Photos App into a Mail composition window and
it inserts the image in there. I didn't have to export from Photos first and then take that file
and attach it. You could see that works in Messages as well. I can drag right from
Photos into Messages. You could drag and drop from Photos to the Finder to export a photo.
But you could also drag and drop a file from the Finder
into Photos to import it. Inside of apps you can drag and drop things. So here I am in the
Photos app. If I wanted to add a photo to an album here in the sidebar I can drag and drop
the photo right to the album. Likewise in the Music App I can drag and drop a song into a
playlist. In the Mail App I can drag and drop a message like this one into a Mailbox or Folder.
In Preview when you're viewing a PDF you can bring up the thumbnails in the sidebar here. You
can move pages around by dragging and dropping the pages to change the order. I could even drag and
drop a PDF file into another PDF file adding it right here as a page inside this document. Or if
I open up the document here, view the thumbnails, I can drag and drop a page from one to the other
to move documents around inside a PDF documents all with just drag and drop.
Now you can move content inside of documents around with drag and drop as well. So,
for instance, I can take some text here inside of a Pages document. Once I've selected it I
can click and then drag that text and move it somewhere else in the document.
But I could also drag and drop it into another document. Or even drag and drop text between apps.
So here I'm going to drag and drop this piece of text from a Pages document into an email.
I'm still only just scratching the surface. You can use Drag and Drop for
so much. Any time you have an object, an item, or some content that you want to do something with
consider what would happen if you were to select it and then drag it onto something or
into something. Would that seem to accomplish what you want. If so then give it a try.
Different apps support drag and drop at different levels so sometimes it may work and solve your
problem without you having to search for a menu item, command, or special function.
Here's some other places where Drag and Drop is the solution. In the Dock you have all these
different apps. If you want to rearrange them simple click and drag and drop them
into a new location. If you launch an app that's not even here, like I'll launch Chess,
it will appear on the right side. But if I want to make it a permanent part of the Dock I can
simply drag it from the right side to the left and now it will stay there in the Dock
even when I've Quit the app. If I want to remove it all I need to do is drag and drop it
up and you could see the little remove label. Now I drop it there
and it's gone from the Dock. All that is done simply with Drag and Drop. Even the Menu Bar
icons here could be rearranged and removed using Drag and Drop. But you have to hold
the Command key down and then you could drag and reorder these or drag them down to remove them.
If you ever want to rearrange items in the sidebar here you could do that
using Drag and Drop. That works here in the Finder. It will work,
say, in Photos moving your albums around. It will work in Mail moving you mailboxes up and down.
In Launchpad you can rearrange the apps by dragging and dropping them and moving them around.
Or you could drop one on top of the other to create a Folder for several apps. You could Drag
and Drop events in the Calendar app. So here I have a lunch scheduled. I can drag and drop it to
another day. In the Reminders app I could drag and drop reminders to rearrange them or to move them
to other Reminders' Lists. Sometimes it's tricky to drag something because if I were to click here
it will check the dot. If I were to click here I'm Editing the text. So I have to find a spot
that's outside of all that like right here. So then drag and drop the entire things as an item.
So here's one last tip. If you were to drag and drop a file from one location in the Finder to
another it will move that file. You could see it's gone from here and now it appears here.
But if you want to Copy instead, while dragging and dropping hold the Option key down. You could
see the little green Plus button. Now the original stays there and a copy is in the new location.
On the other hand if you're moving from one drive to another then by default it will copy. You can
see here a Plus because I'm moving it from the internal drive to this external drive.
If you do want to Move it then hold the Command key down and the Plus goes away. Then you could
actually move it deleting the first copy and only having the second copy when it's done.
So you can see how important it is on a Mac to master Drag and Drop.
So many things that we do, like moving items, rearranging items, exporting and importing,
is all done using Drag and Drop. So get good at using it and you'll be good at using your Mac.