ninja move mac files with the keyboard

I have been waiting to try this one out for awhile.

In the Mac finder, you can use “command-option-V” to paste clipboard-copied files to a new location, and remove them from the source location.

Usually, you just use “command”-V to paste, which leaves the files in their source location.

If you add “option” to the key-chord (what we used to call a ‘key-chord’, back in the day before touch interfaces), the “option” that you are “adding” is deleting the file from its source location.

Another way to remember this is that it’s like the Unix command-line utility “mv”, except without all the options.

I was using middlemanapp to scaffold this blog, build it out on the middleman server, and then copy it to the local Apache server’s documents folder. Blah blah blah. The sequence “middleman build” creates everything in a “build” folder, and you can just copy over to “documents”. Since there is no need to have the old files hanging around in the build folder, command-option V is the perfect way to paste them into the server folder.

It worked!

It saved time!

Thanks to the hard working authors of “Mac Kung Fu” — page 213.