Everyday work
Selecting files
The cursor is the highlighted row. Marked items are drawn in red. Commands act on the marked items, or on the item under the cursor when nothing is marked.
Cursor and marks are separate, exactly as you know them. Moving the cursor never changes the marks, and F5 copies the marked files wherever the cursor is.
With the keyboard§
| Keys | What it does |
|---|---|
| Space | Mark or unmark the item and move down. On a folder it also calculates the folder's size. |
| Insert | Mark or unmark and move down (PC keyboards; on old Apple keyboards the Help key). |
| ⇧↓ ⇧↑ | Mark or unmark and move down or up. Hold them to mark a run of files. |
| ⌘A | Mark all. |
| ⌥⌘A | Unmark all. |
| * | Invert selection. |
| + | Select Group: mark files that match a mask. |
| - | Unselect Group: unmark files that match a mask. |
| ⌥⌘E | Mark all files with the same extension as the one under the cursor. |
With the mouse§
- Click moves the cursor.
- ⌘-click marks or unmarks the clicked item.
- ⇧-click marks every item from the cursor to the clicked one.
The right-click menu acts on the clicked item only, unless the item is marked; then it acts on all marked items. The marks stay as they are.
Masks§
Select Group, Unselect Group and other mask fields use Total Commander's file masks:
*matches any text and?one character:*.jpg,IMG_????.heic.- Separate several masks with
;:*.pdf;*.docx. - A word without wildcards matches names that contain it:
invoiceis the same as*invoice*. - Masks ignore upper and lower case.
Select Group marks files, never folders, like Num + in Total Commander. PaneShift remembers the last mask you used.
What the status line shows§
With marks, the status line shows how many items are marked and how much they take: “3 of 19 marked, 18,3 MB of 538,2 MB”, followed by the free space on the disk. Folder sizes are counted once you have calculated them (Space or ⌥⇧Return).
Copying names and paths§
- ⇧⌘C (File › Copy Name) puts the names of the marked items on the clipboard, one per line.
- ⌥⌘C (File › Copy Path) puts their full paths on the clipboard.
Marks can also be set by Compare Folders (⇧F2) and by scripts.