Select Multiple Items in the Finder | Introduction to Mac OS X | Peachpit

Select Multiple Items in the Finder | Introduction to Mac OS X | Peachpit

Select Multiple Items in the Finder

To select an individual item in a Finder window, you simply single-click it. To select multiple items, there are two ways to do it, as explained below. Once items are a group, you can move them all, trash them all, open them all, change all their labels (see page 140), and more, all at once.

In the Icon View

In the Icon View, hold down the Command key or the Shift key and single-click on as many items as you want to group together. You can only select items from one window while in the Icon View.

In the List View or Column View

In these views, using the Shift key is different from using the Command key.

Hold down the Command key and single-click on multiple items. In the List View, you can select items from several different folders in the same window, as long as their contents are showing in the list; in the Column View, you can only select items from one column at a time. See below, left.

The Shift key lets you select a group of items that are contiguous, or next to each other in the list. Single-click on the first item you want to select in a list. Then hold down the Shift key and click on the last item you want in the list. Everything between the two clicks will be selected. See below, right.

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