File Explorer Shortcuts — TechKnowSurge

About this interactive

Working with files is something you do every day, so a few tricks save a lot of time. Selecting. Drag a box around files to select them all. To select a range, click the first file, hold Shift and click the last: everything in between is selected. To pick files that are not next to each other, hold Ctrl and click each one; Ctrl-clicking a selected file deselects it. When you want everything except a few files, select those few and use Invert selection on the Select menu. Moving and copying. Dragging files to another folder on the same drive moves them. Hold Ctrl while you drag and they are copied instead. Drag with the right mouse button and a menu asks whether to copy or move here. Ctrl+C copies and Ctrl+V pastes; the Copy and Paste buttons do the same. Cut versus copy. Both put the file on the clipboard. After a copy, the original stays where it was. After a cut (the Cut button), the file stays in place until you paste it, and then it disappears from its first folder: it has been moved. Undo and rename. Press Ctrl+Z straight after a mistaken drag to put the files back. To rename, click a file, pause, then click its name, or use the Rename button or right-click menu. Type keys as Shift or Ctrl, the letter after Ctrl+ on its own, and words as one word.

What you'll learn

Select files in File Explorer the efficient way: a range with Shift, single files with Ctrl, and everything else with Invert selection
Move, copy, cut, paste, undo and rename files with the keys, mouse buttons and shortcuts the lesson uses, and tell cut from copy

Aligned to

CompTIA Tech+

3.2 Compare and contrast components of an operating system.

Key terms

Keyboard Shortcut: A combination of one or more keys pressed simultaneously to perform a function or command quickly without using a mouse or menu.
Clipboard: A temporary storage area in the operating system that holds data (text, files, or other content) that has been cut or copied, making it available to paste elsewhere.
Cut: An operation that moves selected content to the clipboard by removing it from its original location, ready to be pasted elsewhere.
Copy: An operation that duplicates selected content to the clipboard while leaving the original content in its source location unchanged.
Paste: An operation that inserts content stored in the clipboard into a target location within the same or a different application.
Drag and Drop: A technique where a user clicks and holds an item, drags it to a new location, and releases it to move or copy the content.
File: A named collection of data stored on a storage medium and tracked by the file system, which records its name, location, size, and attributes so the operating system can retrieve it on demand.
Folder: A graphical user interface representation of a directory, used to visually organize files and other folders within an operating system.

Topics

Keyboard Shortcut Clipboard Cut Copy Paste Drag And Drop Interactive Fill In

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