Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, El Capitan Edition

Moving and Copying Icons

In OS X, there are two ways to move or copy icons from one place to another: by dragging them and 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.) As you drag, you see the ghostly images of all the selected icons moving with your cursor. And the cursor itself sprouts a circled number that reminds you how many files you’re moving.

Tip

You can tell that the copying is under way even if the progress bar is hidden. A tiny progress bar appears right on the icon of the copied material in its new home. You can cancel the process either by pressing ⌘-period or by clicking the in the progress window.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION: Dragging to Copy a Disk

Help! I’m trying to copy a CD onto my hard drive. When I drag it onto the hard drive icon, I get only an alias—not a copy of the CD.

Sure enough, dragging a disk onto a disk creates an alias. But producing a copy of the dragged icon is easy enough: Just press Option or ⌘ as you drag.

Honestly, though: There’s a much better way to copy a CD in OS X.

Using Disk Utility (DigitalColor Meter) instead saves space, lets you assign a password, and usually fools whatever software was on the CD into thinking that it’s still ...