Copy or Duplicate In Finder ???

[musicmad2000]

Hi

What is the difference between copy and duplicate in Finder ? I'm looking to export DATA from my Macs internal drive to an external drive and wasn't sure which option to go with. I ended up choosing duplicate then dragged the duplicated copy to the external drive.

Alternately when needing to copy files or folders to different locations, does the drag and drop method make a auto copy of that folder ? or does it move the original completely.

 

[benwiggy]

Duplicate simply creates a duplicate of the selected file in the current location.

Copy (and Paste) allows you to copy a file and paste it to a new location. Note that you cannot Cut a file in OS X, because any app can easily over-write the pasteboard and so the risk of a file being deleted while in "limbo" is great.

Dragging a file will move it to a new location, unless the file cannot be deleted from its original position, in which case a copy will be made. Similarly, dragging a file onto a different volume will copy, rather than move. (So duplicating a file and dragging it to a new volume should still have left you with the duplicate in the source location.)

You can force a copy, rather than move, by holding down <alt> while dragging.

 

[musicmad2000]

Thanks ben.