Mac Finder Keyboard Shortcuts

⌘C-⌘V is a Windows habit, right? :wink:

Nope. It's been a Mac standard since the first Mac.
Years later, MS Windows copied many of the features of the Mac GUI.

That’s what I meant.

Not 100% sure, but I think ⌘D was already there in the Classic Mac OS days. (At least I cannot remember to have ever used ⌘C-⌘V on a Mac to duplicate a file.)

Cut/Copy/Paste originated with Xerox PARC (well, it originated with paper obviously).

Cut/Copy/Paste was in the original Lisa and Macintosh.

⌘C/X/V was added by Apple in the Lisa/Macintosh.

But I’m pretty sure the Finder did not support copy/paste for files until relatively recently (relative to 1984), and not until long after Windows Finder-equivalent (Desktop? Explorer? Computer? whatever) used the Copy/Paste metaphor for moving files around. According to Mac OS X Hints it was not until 10.7 that Copy & Option-Paste worked in the Finder to Move files.

So it probably is the case that people coming from Windows are more likely to Copy/Paste to move files than long-time Mac users (certainly I would never think to use that metaphor in the Finder).

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Thanks for correcting the Mac history, Peter.

I started out on a PC (TI PC clone actually with the only "high res" color monitor) in 1985 until Apple produced a decent sized monitor with the Mac II. Then back to Windows NT Server in the early 1990's since Apple/Mac did not have a decent SQL database, and most of my clients were using Windows.

By the time I returned to Macs, in 2010, it seemed that all apps, including Finder, supported the same standard Mac UI. So Copy/Paste seemed natural to me in all apps, including Finder. The one Windows shortcut/command I really missed was CUT in Finder.

Hey JM,

Yeah, I really liked that feature in Windows – and Apple was woefully slow to adopt the functionality.

You can copy and then use V to move rather than to paste a copy.

This works the same as cut and paste, although you don't get the satisfaction of watching the files get cut.

Move works between volumes on macOS 10.12.3!

I'm not sure when Apple finally fixed the inter-volume paste issue – it used to just copy if the destination was a different volume than the source.

-Chris

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LOL, indeed, sometimes I go back to see if it is really gone.

System 1 had a File > Duplicate (Command-D) option.

I'm not sure when Apple finally fixed the inter-volume paste issue – it used to just copy if the destination was a different volume than the source.

I've used a separate partition for downloads and other temporary files since Mac OS 8 and I've never seen this issue (now running 10.11.X).