Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

Moving and Copying Icons

In Mac OS X, there are two ways to move or copy icons from one place to another: by dragging them, or by using the Copy and Paste commands.

Copying by Dragging

You can drag icons from one folder to another, from one drive to another, from a drive to a folder on another drive, and so on. (When you’ve selected several icons, drag any one of them; the others tag along.) While the Mac is copying, you can tell that the process is still under way even if the progress bar is hidden behind a window, because the icon of the copied material shows up dimmed in its new home, darkening up only when the copying process is over. You can cancel the copying process by pressing either

-period or the Esc key.

Note

If you’re copying files into a disk or folder that already contains items with the same names, Mac OS X asks you individually about each one. (“An older item named “Fiddlesticks” with extension ‘.doc’ already exists in this location.”) Note that, thank heaven, Mac OS X 10.2 tells you whether or not the version you’re replacing is older or newer than the one you’re moving. (Versions 10.0 and 10.1 didn’t.)

Click Replace or Don’t Replace, as you see fit, or Stop to halt the whole copying business.

Selecting Icons from the Keyboard

For the speed fanatic, using the mouse to click an icon is a hopeless waste of time. Fortunately, you can also select an icon by typing the first ...