Can't Copy and Paste Files in Finder on OS X Lion

http://osxdaily.com/2011/07/29/cut-and-paste-mac-os-x-lion/

I'm having exactly the same problem today on my new iMac as OP. Exactly. Word-for-Word. Interestingly, folders WILL copy, but without their contained files. (The copied folders are empty.)

Permissions don't seem to be the problem. (I'm the administrator on my iMac, and I've set read/write access on the USB drive and on the networked computer.)

iMac 21" 2.8Ghz i7, 8GB, OS X v10.7

A fix, for me at least. I noticed that the problem only occurred on my iMac, not my MacBook Air. So, here was how I solved the problem:

I restarted the iMac.

Ta Da! Now copying works.

Seems like there is a nasty BUG in Finder.

Here is what you can do to - get around this issue.

• Force Quite Finder
• Relaunch
• Do your actions Copy/Paste

It works fine !

I suffer from this bizarre problem too.

In finder, when I copy and paste files from one folder/subfolder, to another folder/subfolder, It may not paste them at all; or, it may paste some of the files I copied; or, it may, correctly, paste every one of the files. The files that ultimately do not get correctly pasted briefly appear "shadow-like," then almost instantaniously vanish. This problem is erratic and substantial.

The files i ordinarily copy and paste are Office, iWork, or .pdf documents.

Please help, or engineer a remedy. Thanks, in advance.

Coming from Windows 7 to Mac I was hoping to avoid OS upgrade issues like this... but paste won't work for me between ANY programs after the latest update. I've tried restarting multiple times.

A little frustrated here.

I have a similar problem. I use cp -r for multiple directerios on terminal and none of the directories were copied but only a few files in them were copied. I tried it several times. I checked the console and it has a message saying zip importer encountered an error (2). Very weird bug from the "most advanced OS".

I'm running into the exactly the same issue and it is getting terribly frustrating.

Having to reboot or force-quit the finder each time is not an option, has anyone found a fix for this? Or is there something bad about dragging a bunch of files from one window to another?

I do find it seems to happen more often with larger files, but it's happening pretty consistently now. Apple HELP!

Zap de PRAM, that solved the issue with my Macbook Pro Lion 10.7.1 (migrated from a Leopard macbook G4).

Here's how to do it:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

I'm having the same exact problem too. Cut and paste is grayed out, and I can't use cmd x either. What the f?

I am having trouble pasting into a subfolder. If I use cmd c and v the files always end up in the documents directory.....very frustrating

This ( How to Reset NVRAM on your Mac - Apple Support ) is the only thing that worked for me - THANKS to danielsosmacfrance for pointing it out!