15 Drag-And-Drop Techniques You Should Be Using

Drag-and-drop is a basic Mac skill, but there are many advanced techniques that most users don't know about. Learn how to use drag-and-drop with multiple desktops, the App Switcher, text selections, URLs, and even between Macs with Universal Control.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Here's are some advanced drag and drop techniques that you should be using on your Mac.
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So Mac users use drag and drop all the time. But there are a ton of different places where you can use it. Not everybody knows about these. First let's start off with something really simple. Like dragging and dropping to the Dock. A lot of times when you want to open a file you would select a file and double click it. It will open in the default app. But you could also drag a file down to the Dock and drag it on top of an app. The apps that accept that type of file will highlight. So instead of having it open in the default TextEdit app I can have it open in Pages instead. But another thing you could do is you could use App Switcher with drag and drop. So I start dragging this file and then I use Command Tab and continue to hold the Command Key down to bring up the App Switcher. But I could also take this file and drop it onto an app here and it will open up in that app. It's really handy for opening a file in an app that you already have running. 
Now if you use Mission Control, I'm going to use Command Up Arrow to go into it, and you have multiple desktops you can drag and drop between the desktops in a couple of different ways. Let's go to Desktop #2 here. I'm going to open up a new Finder window. Then I'm going to use Control Left Arrow to go back here. Let's say I want to move this file. I can get it to the other desktop by using Control Right Arrow to go over there all while still dragging and dropping. I can place it in this Finder window or inside an app or something like that instead. This also works with gestures. I'm dragging with this file but I could still use four fingers on my trackpad to go to the other desktop. You can always use Mission Control as well. So I'm going to drag like this and use the gesture or simply Control Up Arrow to go to Mission Control. Drag to the other desktop, wait, and now I can drop the file into a folder here or into an app. 
I often hear from people using iMovie and using Import to bring files into iMovie before putting in the timeline. But you could actually drag and drop things like videos, audio, and images right into the iMovie timeline. So you can take a video like this from the Finder and drop it right in. It works the same way in Final Cut as well. 
Now you can drag and drop from the Photos App to a variety of different places. One is you can simply drag to the Finder, drag to the Desktop, or to a window like this and it will create a file there. It basically does an export just with a drag and drop. But you could also drag and drop to other apps. So, for instance, I could have Mail open here and be composing a new message. I can switch over to Photos, start dragging, and I'm going to do a quick Command Tab to switch to Mail, and drop right into the Mail app. So to attach an image in Mail or even in Messages you don't need to export it from Photos first. You can go right from Photos to the App.
Now many websites include drop zones to be able to drag and drop images right to the website. So you could certainly click a button and then select the file. But drag and drop right from the Finder usually works. So I can take an image like this one and drag it right in here. This also works with other file types on some websites. If the website supports it you'll be able to drag and drop things like pdf's, for instance, to upload documents. You can also often do this right from the Photos App. You can drag an image right into a website, if that website is programmed to receive it. Sometimes you see a more old fashioned Choose File button like this and if you click it it will allow you to select a file. But you could also drag and drop files or drag and drop images right from Photos right onto the button and then you'll see the photo name appear to the right of it. That's really handy rather than having to go through this whole interface. 
Now when working with text documents, like here in Pages, if you want to move something around we're often tempted to select it, to Cut it or Copy it, and then Paste it somewhere else. But you can actually drag and drop text in most text applications. So I could take this selection here. After I'm done selecting it I can click and hold until I'm dragging. I can drag this to another location like that. This also works if I want to go to a different document. So I'll open up a second document here in Pages and I could drag and drop this text from the first document to the second document. Or I could start dragging. I'm going to switch over to Mail with the App Switcher and then I could drop text right into a Mail message I'm composing. 
You could also create something called Text Clippings. If you drag and drop some text from an app like Pages into the Finder, I'm just going to use the desktop here, you get this thing called a Text Clipping. If you double click on it it doesn't open in an app. You're just in the Finder here and it's giving you a view of what's in here. But you can select text and copy out of it. You can get information about a clipping here at the bottom. If you wanted to you could drag that Text Clipping into another document, like that. When you go to Save a document in Pages you've got this Save dialogue here and you could navigate around in it to go to the place where you want to save the file. But you could also drag and drop. If I were to take a file, like this one, and drag and drop it into this Save Dialogue anywhere in it you could see how it jumps to that location. So if you could see the location that you want to Save a file to in the Finder you can just drag and drop instead of navigating to it. This also works with Open Dialogues like this one. But you can just drag and drop the file right there and then it goes to that location and has that file selected. All you need to do now is press Return or click the Open button.
Now if you have a folder that you commonly dropping files into you don't have to have a Finder window open showing that location to use Drag and Drop. You can simply drag and drop that folder into the sidebar there under Favorites. Now anytime you want to put something in there you can just drag and drop to the sidebar. It's the same as dropping it into the folder itself. It's really handy when you can't see the folder because you're somewhere else entirely. 
If you use the Terminal and you want to type a long path, instead of typing it you can just use drag and drop. So I'm going to use CD for change directory. Let's say I want to go into this folder here. I can just drag and drop anywhere into the window and wherever the text cursor was it's going to put the full path to that location. It's even going to use backslash to escape spaces and now I can quickly jump to that location without ever having to type it. 
You can also use drag and drop to save locations on the web. Here I am in Safari. I can take this URL and drag and drop it to the Finder to either a folder or right here to the desktop. Now if I just drag and drop this I'm actually taking the tab and moving it. So what I want to do is select the URL's so I can see it highlighted. Then drag just the URL and you can see the text here. Drag that into the Finder and then get a web location file like this and it works as a bookmark. So I can now double click it and you can see how it opens up that location in the browser. You can also drag and drop URL's other places. 
For instance I can go into Reminders here and I can create a new reminder by dragging and dropping the URL into the Reminders App. You can see how it created one like that. You can drag and drop into Calendar. You can drag and drop into Notes. You can drag and drop into Documents, Pages, Numbers, etc. 
Now here's something that's important to understand about drag and drop. If you drag and drop from a location on a drive to another location on the same drive it moves the File. However, if you drag and drop from one drive to another, like this is on my internal drive and this folder is on my external drive. Then when I drag it over there you see that little green plus button? That tells me it's going to Copy the file. I won't move the file from one drive to another because that means deleting the file on the original drive. So for safety it is actually going to Copy it. So you end up with one in both places. If you want to change this behavior simple hold down the Command Key. See how the Plus button goes away? Now it is actually going to move the file so it will no longer be on the internal drive and only on the external drive. Likewise when you're moving a file on one drive, if I put it somewhere it's going to move it. But if I hold the Option Key down that will change to a copy.
Another drag and drop technique to master is Spring-Loading. So this is when you have a folder inside a folder. Let's say in Project Beta I've got another folder called Notes and such. If I want to drag and drop something into there but I can't see that subfolder right there. What I can do is start dragging, go to this folder, wait, and it will open up. That's called Spring-Loading. Then I can drop it in here. That way I can get the folders inside of folders while I'm dragging. If for some reason that's not working for you go into System Preferences and then Accessibility and then go to Pointer Control and then look for Spring-Loading Delay. Make sure you have Spring-Loading checked here.
Here's one last technique. This is brand new in macOS version 12.3. That's Drag and Drop over multiple machines using Universal Control. So here I am with a Mac, an iPad and another Mac using Universal Control. You could see I can drag and drop files between all three devices. So dragging and dropping from one Mac to another becomes a lot easier when you use Universal Control to connect them.
So I hope you've learned some new techniques here. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 11 Responses to “15 Drag-And-Drop Techniques You Should Be Using”

Andrea Grasselli

3 years ago

Thank you Gary, really useful, as always!

Kathy

Hi Gary, excellent videos, thanks! Is it possible to drag & drop my own music from CD's that I copied to my iMac using the USB Superdrive? I know how to sync from the iMac to our iOS devices, but my Hubby & I have different music tastes. I was hoping it would be possible to drag & drop just a few songs from the Mac to my iPhone. This would avoid me syncing all of my husband's music to my phone. I have also tried using air drop which copies the music to my iPhone Voice Memo's App & not Music App.

Gary Rosenzweig

Kathy: If you set that iPhone to "Manually Manage Music, Movies, and TV Shows" you can do it. That works pretty much the same since 2007. It is in the Finder now, when you connect your iPhone you'll see it in "General" for the iPhone. But it is all-or-nothing. You have to use that, or sync, you can't do both.

Thank you Gary. Just to clarify will manually managing after I had synced previously remove previously synced music or allow me to 'add to' what is already synced I wonder?

Kathy: It will remove it all and you'll start from scratch.

Hi Gary, I thought that may be the case. Thanks for the clarification.

Mick

Thanks Gary. Excellent tutorial. Loads of techniques I never knew existed. Thanks Mick

Steve

I'm using the Apple touchpad on my iMac and am finding it impossible to learn the magic taps or swipes to move a selected block of text within a new Pages doc. Is it possible to do this in my environment? A review of my touchpad settings doesn't uncover a quick fix. Would love to know what I'm doing wrong, if anything!

Steve: First check System Preferences, Trackpad to make Sure you haven't disabled the feature you want to use. If you can't get the hang of dragging text in Pages, you can always just use copy and paste. I have a video coming next week that shows you how to drag things for those that have trouble.

Thanks, Gary!
I have everything turned on for Touchpad in Sys Pref, except for Haptic Feedback and Launchpad pinching. I'll continue to use Copy/Cut/Paste until I learn the drag/drop trick, perhaps from your next video.

Forgot to mention.... since I don't use drag/drop as efficiently as you do in this video, my tools of choice for manipulating copied/cut/pasted items are: Yoink, Paste and Snagit. I'm always open to better ways of doing, so your input is much appreciated. (I recommend your newsletter to any Mac user I happen to meet.)

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15 Drag-And-Drop Techniques You Should Be Using

Comments: 11 Responses to “15 Drag-And-Drop Techniques You Should Be Using”

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