How to Finally Cut, Copy and Paste Files in Google Drive
One of the most annoying things about Google Drive has finally been fixed: You can now cut, copy, and paste files using standard keyboard shortcuts when using Google’s cloud storage service. Unfortunately, this feature is limited to Google Chrome and its derivatives, so you’re out of luck if you’re using Firefox or other non-Chromium browsers. Here’s how to use these new features.
How to Cut, Copy and Paste to Google Drive
If you’re using a Windows PC, you can use Ctrl+C to copy, Ctrl+V to paste, and Ctrl+X to cut files in Google Drive. On a Mac, replace Ctrl with Command. You can select any file (or group of files) and use shortcuts to copy or move files to another directory in Google Drive. If you’ve copied a file, Google Drive will automatically save its URL and title to your clipboard. When you paste it into any writing application like Google Docs or Mail, you will be able to share the document title and link with others.
How to Create Shortcuts to Avoid Duplicates
Google Drive has also introduced a keyboard shortcut that allows you to create a shortcut to a file. If you want to store the same document in different folders, you can create shortcuts in all of those folders to avoid making multiple copies of the same file and losing track of changes.
To create a shortcut to another Google Drive file, select the file and copy it (Ctrl+C or Command+C), then use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+C on Windows or Command+Shift+C on Mac.
Select multiple blocks of text in Google Docs
In addition, Google Docs lets you speed up formatting tasks by highlighting multiple blocks of text; this way you can select multiple subheadings or other blocks of text scattered throughout the document and apply formatting changes in one go. On Windows, this can be done by pressing Ctrl while selecting each block of text. On a Mac, you can hold Command while selecting blocks of text.
Open files or folders in new tabs
If you want to quickly open multiple Google Drive files or folders, you can select them all and press Ctrl+Enter on Windows or Command+Enter on Mac. This will open all those files and folders in new tabs.