Cut - Paste in Finder. OS X v10.6

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Level 1

0 points

Cut - Paste in Finder. OS X v10.6

Hi everyone

I am one of the many struggling with the missing cut/move feature in Finder. I did find a solution for Lion 10.7 in another thread (cmd + C -> cmd+alt+V, another guy said cmd + C -> ctrl+alt+V ) but it simply does not work in OS X v10.6.8. In the Finder the Cut functions is simply light grey. Btw, I have admin status, so that is not the reason. I need a trick, a plugin for Finder, or even another File Handling program...

BR

Anders

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Feb 21, 2013 4:42 AM

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Answer 1

Comusemr

Level 1

8 points

Jun 13, 2017 9:30 AM in response to ACK007

I know it's been years since the thread was created, but the answer to this question is XtraFinder .

You should download from the button that reads Download for OS X 10.6

Execute the .dmg, install and click the item "Cut&Paste" in XtraFinder's Preferences (tab-->Features)

That will enable you to cut and paste and also the shortcut cmd+X to cut... ONCE AND FOR ALL

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Answer 2

ratzr15

Level 1

1 points

Feb 21, 2013 5:05 AM in response to ACK007

By default in Mac OS X 10.7 and above cut or cmd + X wont work !!

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Answer 3

ACK007 Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 21, 2013 5:34 AM in response to ratzr15

I am not here discuss functionality in OS X 10.7, as my problem is with 10.6, however according to a lot of high level guys in here, cut does in fact work as described in the first post.

I hope someone will reply with a solution.

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Answer 4

Feb 21, 2013 8:14 AM in response to ACK007

There is no "cut" for files in the Finder. Not in Lion. Not in Mountain Lion. Command-C is Copy, not Cut. Command-Option-V is Move File Here. So Command-C followed by Command-Option-V has a similar effect to Cut and Paste, but the first step is Copy, not Cut. I don't remember if the Move File Here command is available in Snow Leopard.

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Answer 5

ACK007 Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 21, 2013 8:29 AM in response to Jeffrey Jones2

Well, I knew all that. See my first post. I wrote cut/move feature - and gave exactly the same options as you just repeated. As the question says OS X v10.6. This option is NOT available in Snow Leopard. I need an alternative.

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Answer 6

Jeff Shenk

Level 4

2,993 points

Feb 21, 2013 10:10 AM in response to ACK007

Well, the alternative would be Command C, Command Delete followed by a move to a new location and a Command V. Of course that means that if you forget and copy something else before you paste, you will have trashed your only copy of the file, but that's why the Finder doesn't have Cut in the first place.

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Answer 7

Kurt Lang

Level 9

57,858 points

Feb 21, 2013 10:21 AM in response to ACK007

Move Addict

File Cutter

Though really, there's no need to use either of these. If you drag and drop between folders on the same drive/partition, it will be a move anyway. And if you drag and drop to a different drive/partition, press and hold the Command key to make it a move rather than a copy.

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Answer 8

ACK007 Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 21, 2013 1:46 PM in response to Kurt Lang

Thank you Kurt for your reply. Moving files around is one of the most basic and fundamental operations for a file manager program. I dont spend my time with a mouse. It is slow and error-prone. Drag/drop is not a viable alternative to a proper keyboard shortcut. Any programmer would know. I am honestly surprised that high-level Mac users would come with such a suggestion. But thank you for the two links. I will try it out.

And to Jeff: My memory span is more than 5 sec, so it has never been a problem for me (or most people under 90y) to use a cut/move function that does not remind me of what I just did... You were joking, right?

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Answer 9

ACK007 Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 21, 2013 3:13 PM in response to ACK007

Thank you Kurt. Move Addict was the solution. File Cutter unfortunately does not work from v.10.6 and up, because Apple has eliminated support for context menu plugins. Apple unfortunately only likes... Apple.

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Answer 10

Kurt Lang

Level 9

57,858 points

Feb 21, 2013 3:56 PM in response to ACK007

Move Addict was the solution.

Excellent. Glad one of those worked for you. Until Lion (or Mountain Lion), Apple's OS never had a cut command. It's still not a menu choice, you have to know the keyboard shortcut for it.

Many Windows do use cut and it was always a bit of a sore spot for them to not have that option on the Mac OS. I used Windows for years and actually avoided using cut. That because more than once something would cause the OS to hang and then anywhere from one to a few files would be permanently lost. They wouldn't be in the source or target folder after restarting. That's the main reason (at least, most often related) that Apple didn't include a cut command. It can cause data loss.

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Answer 11

Klaus1

Level 9

52,749 points

Feb 21, 2013 4:00 PM in response to Kurt Lang

Until Lion (or Mountain Lion), Apple's OS never had a cut command.

Leopard does, and I am sure Tiger had as well.

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Answer 12

Kurt Lang

Level 9

57,858 points

Feb 21, 2013 4:07 PM in response to Klaus1

I've never seen it. How do you invoke cut in these older versions of OS X?

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Answer 13

Klaus1

Level 9

52,749 points

Feb 21, 2013 4:08 PM in response to Kurt Lang

From the Edit menu. Shortcut = Command-X

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Answer 14

Kurt Lang

Level 9

57,858 points

Feb 22, 2013 6:33 AM in response to Klaus1

I'm looking at Snow Leopard at the moment. There is no such command.

Are you looking within an application? If so, yes, there are various apps which have their own cut command.

What ACK007 was referring to is that OS X has no cut command at the Finder level so you can do a cut and paste of files/folders from one folder to another. That didn't exist until Lion under the keyboard shortcut Command+Option+V.

If you do see such a cut command at the Finder level, then you have a third party app installed making that possible.

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Answer 15

Klaus1

Level 9

52,749 points

Feb 22, 2013 7:40 AM in response to Kurt Lang

Leopard:

The Cut command in Finder is present but greyed out. As far as I can tell it only works in text editing applications like Word and Bean, and in Filemaker etc.

I have tried to use the command in Finder to move files, but no go.

So you are right!

Which begs the question: why is there in Finder at all?

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