Tip of the Week: 5 Easy Ways to Move Multiple Files

Storing physical files has been an important part of the office infrastructure for a very long time, and for good reason: every organization has some information they have to store. Traditionally, files were stuffed into folders and catalogued in a file cabinet for “easy” access. This is how many offices still look like, but when it was time to move files, it took a lot of work. Now, since many files are stored electronically, there are many shortcuts that you can take to improve the way you move your files.

Click and Drag
If you have your files placed in one location, like on your desktop, you can click and drag your mouse to create an boxed area of effect. Any files within this box can be moved through a simple click and drag function. Select the files you want to move, then drag any one of them to the location to move all that are selected.

Select the Checkboxes
In Windows 10, you have little checkboxes that you can click to select the individual file. If you have several files that you need to move you can click the checkboxes for all of them, then move just one to move them all. This can save you considerable time and effort.

The Click-Shift
You can select files that are horizontal and adjacent to each other by using the Click-Shift method. Basically, you select the file that you want to move, and then hold down the Shift key while selecting the last one you want to move. Anything in between will be selected. All you have to do is click and drag the files to their new location.

Hold Ctrl
When you hold down the Ctrl key, you can click on files that you want to move. Once they’re selected, all you have to do is move them to the appropriate folder.

Select All Files
If you decide that your desktop is much too cluttered, and you need to move everything on it to a new location, the same Select All keyboard shortcut that works in most word processors can be used to select all of your files at once. Just hit Ctrl+A to select all files in your current window, or desktop. Just click and drag them, and you’re all set.

Just remember that some of these keyboard shortcuts also work with Mac OS X. All you have to do is substitute the Ctrl key for the Command key, and they should work in generally the same way.

Fun Fact: You know how Windows is bundled with Solitaire? No, we aren’t assuming that you are playing it at work. Microsoft decided to bundle their OS with Solitaire as a way to get users more accustomed to dragging and double clicking objects with their mouse.

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