The methods described above work throughout macOS. How to select multiple files outside the Finder

Right-click or Control-click on the files to display a dropdown menu and choose from options such as Rename, open with a specific application, or Move to Bin.

Press the Spacebar to invoke Quick Look, then use the arrow keys to cycle through previews of the selected files.

Press the Option key while you drag them to copy them instead of moving them to the new location.

Move them to a new location by dragging them.

Here’s what you can do with multiple files once you’ve selected them To select all the files in a folder, click on one and then press Command-A. Then, use the Command-select method to deselect those you don’t want. In some instances, it might be quicker to select a whole group of files. To deselect files, hold the Command key down and simply click them. You can drag over contiguous files while holding the Command key to select them, then let go of the mouse button and carry on selecting discontiguous files. For that reason, it’s easier to use it in the Icon view.Ĭlick on the first file you want to select, then press and hold the Command key and select the other files. It’s important you don’t click on the file name or icon as that will drag the file itself. You can deselect multiple files by Command-clicking each item.Ĭlick to the left or right of a file name, press and hold the trackpad or the mouse button and drag over the files you want to select. Select the first file in the List view, then hold down the Shift key and select the last file.

We all know that to select a file in the Finder, you just hover over it with the mouse pointer and click, right? But what if you need to select multiple files? There are several options, depending on whether they are contiguous (appear next to each other in the Finder) or discontiguous.

So, in this article, we’ll take a look at them all and explain them in detail. There are many different ways to select multiple files and perform actions on them, and not all are obvious. It was the feature that differentiated using a Mac from using a PC, even in the early days of Windows. The ability to select files with a mouse and then drag and drop them to wherever you want them to go has been a cornerstone of the Mac experience since the very start in 1984. But to help you do it all by yourself, we’ve gathered our best ideas and solutions below.įeatures described in this article refer to the MacPaw site version of CleanMyMac X. So here’s a tip for you: Download CleanMyMac to quickly solve some of the issues mentioned in this article.

Select all files in mac