10.6.6 - Finder: edit -> cut disabled

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.

Yes, all Apple needs to do is to provide a 'move to folder' option on right click or under the "file" menu options in Finder, just like 'Move to trash' option. This simple feature will tremendously help...

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

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...

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

A reasonable idea. Why not tell Apple?

Where to send product feedback to Apple:

https://www.apple.com/contact/feedback.htmlf

Thanks scigeek64hd, you've probably saved me hours of drag-dropping with that post. It's a shame this feature isn't more discoverable.

Thanks to you also, scigeek64hd.... These guys with their so called "Level 6" and "Level 7" should be ashamed of themselves for not knowing this simple tip!

That's because most Mac people drag and drop their files as opposed to using Cut & Paste. Cut, copy, and paste are generally used for just text.

If your MacBook supports Mountain Lion, then upgrade it. Then you'll have Cut & Paste with the keyboard.

Technically, you'll have Copy & Move with the keyboard.

Thanks much scigeek64hd

So, I guess you retract your previous ridiculous statement that cutting and pasting is dangerous now that apple has it implemented?

People in this topic wanted to cut and paste items, which is what the previously mentioned commands do. What goes on behind the scenes, nobody really cared.