Moving folders to external drive problem

Question

Moving folders to external drive problem

Mac OS 10.7.5

When I want to MOVE a folder from my HDD to an external USB disk I share with a PC I hold the CMD key, click on the folder which is on the iMac's internal HDD and drag and drop the folder onto the window of the external USB disk.

My problem is that unless I release the mouse keys after a very short time (maybe half a second), the MOVE changes into a COPY (the green plus sign appears on the icon and the files are copied and not moved).

How can avoid this or at least get this time to be longer ? My reflexes are not very good.

Thank you in advance.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Nov 14, 2012 10:02 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Nov 14, 2012 10:14 AM in response to robertfromroma

It is always safer to copy data among different disks.

You can delete the source at the end.

Reply

Answer 2

disguise

Level 2

452 points

Nov 14, 2012 10:57 AM in response to robertfromroma

Here's an link that's relevant.

10.6.6 - Finder: edit -> cut disabled: Apple Support Communities

Reply

Answer 3

disguise

Level 2

452 points

Nov 14, 2012 11:01 AM in response to robertfromroma

There's always the Terminal and the Shell command line.

Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal

At the prompt type (and hit return)

man mv

This manual page explains the move UNIX command.

Reply

Answer 4

Nov 14, 2012 1:36 PM in response to Alberto Ravasio

Ciao Alberto (mi sa che ci conosciamo pure :-) ),

well as much as I agree with what you say there are cases in which moving is a lot handier and safety less important.

As an example I was Cmd-selecting around 30 files in a directory that contained around 200 and wanted to move them off to an external disk.

Then while this first task is under way I Cmd-select another 5 I missed and do the same.

Without MOVING them I need to remember all 35 I have selected and then delete them, which can be error prone.

Disguise, thanks to you too for trying to help, but as much I'm a shell text command buff, selection of around 35 long named music files amongst 200 is a made a lot simpler by the Finder, don't you agree ?

Buona notte !

Reply

Answer 5

Nov 14, 2012 1:59 PM in response to robertfromroma

Disguise, thanks to you too for trying to help, but as much I'm a shell text command buff, selection of around 35 long named music files amongst 200 is a made a lot simpler by the Finder, don't you agree ?

Not completely true. You can have the best of the two worlds.

Use the Finder to select files, and drag the selection into a Terminal window, where you have already typed the mv command. All the names are pasted with the correct syntax. As a final step add the destination disk/folder.

Isn't that simple 😉 ?

Reply

Answer 6

Nov 15, 2012 4:56 AM in response to Alberto Ravasio

This is very cool :-) Thanks

Reply

Answer 7

Nov 20, 2012 2:55 AM in response to Alberto Ravasio

The only semi-serious drawback of this otherwise very good solution, is that you have no visual clue about the progress of the moving. This can be serious when large amounts of data are involved.

Reply

Answer 8

Nov 20, 2012 6:30 AM in response to robertfromroma

robertfromroma wrote:

The only semi-serious drawback of this otherwise very good solution, is that you have no visual clue about the progress of the moving. This can be serious when large amounts of data are involved.

Just add -v after mv

mv -v srcfile destFolder/

Reply