How to Select All on Mac

Use keyboard shortcuts

Determine the items to select. These items can be in a document, web page, or even a folder in your Mac's Finder.

Click anywhere on the window. Place the cursor in the window containing the text, image, or file you want to select, then click.

Press ⌘and Aat the same time. The ⌘ key is located on both sides of the spacebar. Everything in the active window will be highlighted. You can now move, delete, copy, or cut highlighted items at the same time.

Or, you can click Edit or View in the menu bar at the top of the screen, then select Select All.

Use mouse or trackpad

Select the entire file displayed as an icon. Open the finder window and expand it all the way so you can see all the data located in the given folder.

Place the mouse pointer in the upper left corner of the folder. You need to make sure that the mouse pointer is over empty space in the folder and not over any individual files.

Click and drag the mouse pointer to the lower right corner of the screen. All files, folders and images in between will be selected.

Select all files displayed as a list. Open a window or app with its contents displayed in list view.

Click the first file or item in the list.

Hold down the shift key .

Click the item at the bottom of the list.

The entire list between the first and last item will be selected and highlighted.

Now you can perform actions (move, copy, cut, delete, etc.) on the entire file at once.

David Pac

Update 27 June 2024