Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

10.6.6 - Finder: edit -> cut disabled

why is 'cut' disabled under edit? how do I move files from one location to another? (10.6.6)

(when you right-click on a file only "move" option is "move to Trash"...;-)

can I config OS to fix this? it's really not very practical...

thank you...

iMac

Posted on Mar 28, 2011 2:13 PM

Reply
Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Apr 1, 2011 10:49 PM

the short answer is that it is not disabled because it doesn't exist.

now, let's get some things straight. firstly let me just say that i have been a mac user for years, and i have never even owned a computer that ran windows 7.

having said that, with all due respect, it seems as though some of you folks have never even used windows before.

_*1. if you cut A and then cut B, it will NOT lead to data loss, you will NOT lose A.*_

what happens when you Cut:
i. file/folder is copied to the clipboard.
original item is NOT deleted.

what happens when you Paste after Cut:
i. item is copied to the destination.
ii. original item is deleted.

this means that if you perform 2 successive cuts, there will not be any 'unnecessary data loss'. in such a case, the first item will be restored its original position.

the ONLY exception to this is when you are cutting text from a text field. however, every discussion i have come across, including this one, is with regards to Finder, in which case it is not an issue. +*ironically, Cut is possible in mac when editing text fields.*+

again, i am not trying to offend anyone when i say that anyone who has a decent understanding of how windows works would know this.

_*2. You cannot move files between disks.*_

that is right, you cannot move files between disks. all you can do is copy them. rather than upgrade the hard disk on my macbook i for one connect it to a total of 3TB of external storage, which makes sense because that capacity does not even exist for laptop hard disk drives.

anyway, in the event that you try to drag and drop (i am not a fan of the whole keyboard dance thing, read below) files between HDDs, the file is only copied, not moved. this is in contrast to when the origin and destination are on the same disk, and the file is moved.

clearly, for someone like myself who transfers large amounts of data between disks, it becomes a hassle. if i dont move data out of my macbook HD it would get filled and i would have a problem.

on a side note, i am not a fan of the whole keyboard fingerdance simply because it is not intuitive. it is something that needs to be trained. to perform a shortcut you actually need to first recall what the shortcut is. you do not need to remember what a click is. even if it isn't a single step, all i need to perform are a succession of clicks, each prompting the next.

obviously, you can't stop someone like me; i use Path Finder.
48 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Apr 1, 2011 10:49 PM in response to kali90

the short answer is that it is not disabled because it doesn't exist.

now, let's get some things straight. firstly let me just say that i have been a mac user for years, and i have never even owned a computer that ran windows 7.

having said that, with all due respect, it seems as though some of you folks have never even used windows before.

_*1. if you cut A and then cut B, it will NOT lead to data loss, you will NOT lose A.*_

what happens when you Cut:
i. file/folder is copied to the clipboard.
original item is NOT deleted.

what happens when you Paste after Cut:
i. item is copied to the destination.
ii. original item is deleted.

this means that if you perform 2 successive cuts, there will not be any 'unnecessary data loss'. in such a case, the first item will be restored its original position.

the ONLY exception to this is when you are cutting text from a text field. however, every discussion i have come across, including this one, is with regards to Finder, in which case it is not an issue. +*ironically, Cut is possible in mac when editing text fields.*+

again, i am not trying to offend anyone when i say that anyone who has a decent understanding of how windows works would know this.

_*2. You cannot move files between disks.*_

that is right, you cannot move files between disks. all you can do is copy them. rather than upgrade the hard disk on my macbook i for one connect it to a total of 3TB of external storage, which makes sense because that capacity does not even exist for laptop hard disk drives.

anyway, in the event that you try to drag and drop (i am not a fan of the whole keyboard dance thing, read below) files between HDDs, the file is only copied, not moved. this is in contrast to when the origin and destination are on the same disk, and the file is moved.

clearly, for someone like myself who transfers large amounts of data between disks, it becomes a hassle. if i dont move data out of my macbook HD it would get filled and i would have a problem.

on a side note, i am not a fan of the whole keyboard fingerdance simply because it is not intuitive. it is something that needs to be trained. to perform a shortcut you actually need to first recall what the shortcut is. you do not need to remember what a click is. even if it isn't a single step, all i need to perform are a succession of clicks, each prompting the next.

obviously, you can't stop someone like me; i use Path Finder.

Mar 28, 2011 6:30 PM in response to kali90

WHAT??? there is a "cut" option under edit menu, it's just grayed out.. why did they include it if it doesn't work at all???????


It does work just fine, just not for what you want to do with it. Cutting files is dangerous if done wrong and inconsistent with all other cutting if done safely. That wouldn't bother a company that doesn't give a crap about their OS's interface, but that company ain't Apple.

sorry, this is ********...


Watch yourself there, pal... that is not a word that anyone with half a brain uses as an insult. Your choice of words makes you sound like an ignorant and self-absorbed teenager.

May 29, 2017 2:15 AM in response to thomas_r.

The Edit menu items "cut", "copy", "paste" and "select all" are all grouped together.

All of these work on files if you have a file or folder selected or text if you are in a text context.


The impression a user is likely to receive from this menu is that "Cut" is an action which can be performed on files.


If you move a file using CMD+ALT+V, then the Edit menu reflects this by indicating you can "Undo Move".

This means that Apple refer to this action as "Move" although they don't list it anywhere in the UI.


This confusion between "Cut" and "Move", the choice of command grouping and updating some elements in the UI inconsistently with others is clearly something which leads to confusion, regardless of whether the users are coming to MacOS from Windows or not.


It doesn't matter how Windows does it. In fact, it doesn't matter how *every other desktop UI in the world* does it. If Apple want to go their own way, that's fine - but they need to make it clear what's going on, and threads like this are proof that's not happening.

Nov 15, 2017 1:14 AM in response to azri

It's years later, but I'm so glad to have encountered someone else on the apple forums who knows what they're talking about. I was just re-organizing pretty much my entire laptop hard drive and my external hard drive today and was seriously just so irritated by how annoying it was trying to move all of my files and folders around. I have a desktop computer that I actually built myself for gaming (but have always used my Macbook for music production) and even though I'm still only on Windows 7, in my opinion, file management on a PC vs. a Mac is just so much easier that I actually ended up investing in the Paragon HFS+ so that I could reorganize the external hard drive on my desktop. Was even able to do the same to the folders on my Macbook after sharing those folders on the network.


I'm sure there's a better solution than having to set all that up on a PC just so you can do some intense file management and organization, but I've been using both Mac and PC for years now and I'm just fed up with the way Mac OSX handles it. Moving, deleting, copying, opening, and editing files should be SIMPLE... The most basic, routine things sometimes just seem like such a pain...


I mean, I got so tired of entering in my password (because I'm constantly navigating in between both libraries and other folders that for whatever reason I can't change permissions on) that I ended up getting rid of my user password entirely.... That is, until I tried to do a sudo command in terminal and was unable to execute it since it required a password and I had removed mine -______-


Ever since then, my password for my macbook has been the space bar lol

Nov 15, 2017 1:59 AM in response to kali90

It's years later, but I'm so glad to have encountered someone else on the apple forums who knows what they're talking about. Several years ago, I remember trying to re-organize and re-structure the files on my Macbook external hard drive and it was so tedious. I'm a musician who is paranoid about losing or forgetting an idea or a sound, so I'm constantly saving different versions of projects and copying (and most often just duplicating) sample and preset/patches just because I'm so OCD about potentially making changes and losing the original sources -_- I was never very diligent about organization, my folders got so cluttered (but hey, at least I know everything is still there, even if it's so unorganized that it's impossible to find stuff anyways lol).



So that day I decided I was going to just clean everything up and thought "how hard could it be?"



It was EXTREMELY irritating. Trying to move all of my files and folders around--having to shift/command click several items and carefully drag them all over the place, yet still accidentally hitting the wrong folder or losing my selection of multiple items by mis-clicking on occasion... The constant password requests... Ugh. I gave up pretty quickly.



I actually have a desktop computer that I built myself to use for hardcore gaming (but still use the Macbook for music production). Even though to this day,. my desktop is STILL only on Windows 7, when it comes to file management on my PC vs on my Mac, Windows is a far more pleasant experience, even with the addition in OSX for cutting/pasting actual files. Back then, I ended up investing in the Paragon HFS+ so that I could reorganize the external hard drive on from my desktop, and after 20 minutes of being so relieved by how much easier it was, I shared folders from my Macbook so I could organize those too.



I'm honestly not sure if there was a better solution than having to set all that up on my PC just so I could do some basic (yet extensive) file management and organization... But I've been using both Mac and PC for years now and I STILL get fed up with the way Mac OSX handles things like that. Moving, deleting, copying, opening, and editing files should be SIMPLE... Sometimes it feels like the most basic, routine things are just so unnecessarily difficult on my Mac :/



I got so tired of entering in my password while moving files around, that I ended up just removing my user password entirely... That is, until I tried to enter a sudo command in terminal and it absolutely would not let execute it because I couldn't get passed the password request, even though I didn't have one -_____-



I've been using space bar as my password ever since then XD



Speaking of which... Is there honestly no way to edit permissions on those folders so that you don't have to enter your password a thousand times a day? I remember looking for a solution several years ago and just gave up... I have root user enabled now and just login as that for times when I'm expecting a lot of password entering...

Nov 15, 2017 2:46 AM in response to Astuce999

Wonderful, my bad on double posting. I was trying to edit the original post and it wouldn't let me post for some reason. After alt-tabbing (cmd-tabbing WHATEVER) back and refreshing (per the suggestion lol) it SAID it recovered but then ended up posting as a reply instead of an edit.


And why the heck would it not let me edit right away?! Even their forums are garbage, ugh

Mar 28, 2011 6:17 PM in response to laundry bleach

laundry bleach wrote:
"Cutting" and "pasting" of files has never been part of the Mac OS as long as I have used it.


WHAT??? there is a "cut" option under edit menu, it's just grayed out.. why did they include it if it doesn't work at all???????

sorry, this is ********... I don't like to drag files, sometimes they end up in wrong location....

(AND: "pasting" is very much a part of mac OS, I can both copy and paste files, either thru edit menu ("copy <fileName>" after I've selected it) or by right-clicking inside a folder ("paste item")... at least in 10.6.6.....

thank you..

Mar 28, 2011 8:00 PM in response to thomas_r.

Thomas A Reed wrote:


sorry, this is ********...


Watch yourself there, pal... that is not a word that anyone with half a brain uses as an insult. Your choice of words makes you sound like an ignorant and self-absorbed teenager.


touchee.. sorry... bad choice of words... so, since I don't like to drag files, I guess only way is to copy files then go back to location where I copied them from and remove them.. oh well... (Adobe Bridge does allow you to move files... it's very useful, b/c it gives you a choice as to where to move files to (you can either copy or move files.. and it works very well, b/c if it's a folder to where you have moved or copied files before it's already in sub-menu (under "copy to" or "move to"), and you just click on the location you want..)

thank you..

Apr 1, 2011 10:44 PM in response to kali90

Lets not also forget

Kill: Ctrl-K
Yank: Ctrl-Y

With text selected, Ctrl-K works as a secondary “cut” command by removing the highlighted text without replacing what is currently residing in your clipboard. To bring the text back, hit Ctrl-Y.

“Kill” has a special use beyond that of the “cut” command. If you place your cursor at a given point in a paragraph and hit Ctrl-K, all of the text from that point forward will be cut. This is a great way to quickly grab and move an entire paragraph of text.


Ctrl-K only seems to work on editable text (like in TextEdit and Mail). For instance, you can’t “kill” text on a web page.

As far as I can tell, these are a carry-over from Linux.

10.6.6 - Finder: edit -> cut disabled

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.