10 Mac Copy And Paste Tips And Tricks

Copy and Paste on a Mac is pretty simple. But there are many advanced techniques beyond the basics. You can copy without styles, or only styles, copy and paste files, copy screenshots without saving them, copy more than one thing at a time, and even copy and paste between your Apple devices.

Comments: 16 Responses to “10 Mac Copy And Paste Tips And Tricks”

    Stephen Schulte
    4 years ago

    Gary,

    A very nice instructional video! In conjunction with copy and pasting it would be great if you could do an instructional video on "Copy'em" (originally "Copy'em Paste) - which is available on the Apple Mac Store. This app is essential for me and replaces all previous copy/paste managers. Copy'em also offers an iOS app that works with the Mac version. The features in Copy'em should be standard in Mac. It's 2020 & Mac still only has 1 copy/paste!!

    Glad Hoi Chang did this app!!

    4 years ago

    Stephen: I mention Clipboard Managers in this video. it is #3.

    Stephen Schulte
    4 years ago

    Gary, Yes a very brief mention but Copy'em (and maybe 1 or 2 others) need to be REALLY shown to MacUsers as they truly open the door to using a Mac efficiently! Another similarly super-useful app would be TextExpander (can't live without it) and not a copy/paste but essential is Default Folder X.

    Thanks, Steve

    Howard Brazee
    4 years ago

    The alt-paste option switching to move works in reverse when pasting to a different drive, which I use more often. Just now I noticed "Copy as pathname". What does that do?

    4 years ago

    Howard: Try it and you'll see. It does exactly what it says.

    Jeanne Bragg
    4 years ago

    I always learn so much from you.
    Have spent the past two days dragging screenshots to the tras after haveping used them.
    Also learned from your Udemy video how to “copy and match styles” in pages
    Now know I can do it everywhere.
    Thanks, Gary.

    Matthew Brooks
    4 years ago

    Very clear and concise.
    I'm so glad I stumbled across your YouTube page. Even though I'm several years into using Mac OS, I've got 20+ years of Windows usage still encoded into my thinking, which has been slowing me up. Now to embark on the big challenge ... rewiring my brain from Excel to Numbers 😳
    Many thanks Gary for this fabulous series

    G Lud
    4 years ago

    I've been using CopyPastePro for 20 years.....I don't know why Apple hasn't bought the company and put it on Macs. It can't be beat. Give it a try and you'll be amazed at all the thing it can do......Not being a techie, I probably don't use all its tools.

    Ian Leckie
    4 years ago

    Hi Gary! I´ve been a Mac user since 1992 (LC II) and had never heard of the secondary clipboard and "Kill and Yank"! Amazing, how incredibly useful! Wish I´d known about this years ago! Thanks so much for this tip! Best regards, Ian.

    Jeremy
    4 years ago

    You demonstrated using command-C to copy a selected region of the screen to clipboard having first activated macOS’ newer screen capture facilities, but a long-standing and easier way to achieve that is using Shift-Control-Command-4 then dragging a marquee of the area you want to copy.

    4 years ago

    Jeremy: It is just as easy, but it is also easier to know only one keyboard shortcut and then be able to do so much.

    Mike
    4 years ago

    Gary. Recently upgraded to Catalina. Kust tried kill and yank for the first time - it doesn't seem to work. Have they removed it with Catalina?

    4 years ago

    Mike: This tutorial is done with Catalina. Which app are you trying this with? Try it in TextEdit, for example.

    JD
    4 years ago

    Command+Ctrl+Shift+4 will allow one to select
    a portion of the window which saves it to the
    the clipboard for immediate pasting with
    Command+v anywhere else.

    Cmd+v pasting is not limited to the
    application from which you took the
    screenshot. You can paste the contents
    of the clipboard anywhere.

    Tami
    4 years ago

    It would be cool to see how to paste without formatting in google docs. It doesn't seem to work.

    4 years ago

    Tami: Google Docs has its own command for this under the Edit menu. Are you saying it isn't working for you? That would be a bug in Google Docs then.

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