I recently switched my work laptop from a ThinkPad running Arch to a MacBook Air M2.
I was very efficient in my Arch environment that I have tweaked gradually for over a decade so I was quite reluctant to make the move.
Trying to keep an open mind, I told myself that at least I will get the pleasure of using the amazingly intuitive and beautiful UIs that Apple have been tweaking since before I was even born!
Imagine my disappointment. Simple things are slow and annoying. Difficult things are impossible.
Something so basic as moving a file between two directories. Can you Command-X, Command-V it? No. If both folders are open in Finder tabs you can drag the file to the tab, then wait for a blinking animation to complete before you are allowed to drop it into the target folder.
I guess you should open both folders as separate windows and then drag. But that creates even more windows, and window management in Macos is just impossible to tweak, so you are forced to use Apple's weird gesture-based paradigm. It might feel productive since you make so many animations happen but switching to the window you're thinking of should - and could - take fractions of a second and feel like an extension of your mind but in this new reality it's more like choreographing a bizarre window ballet even when you get used to it.
Things could be so much better. But hey, the hardware seems pretty good.
Different shortcuts from app to app. Back when I used Mac last time it frustrated me to no end that the simple system that works everywhere on Windows and Linux:
- home / end for start / end of line
- arrow left /right to move one character at at time
- ctrl to move one word at a time
- shift combines nicely with all these in case you need to select the text you move across
while on Mac of course home and end doesn't exist (bonus point for there being two keys there that could have been home and end or page up and page down, but that even the most dyed in the wool Mac users I know cannot explain what they are for) and while I think it is rather consistent now, back then it wasn't consistent that CMD - arrow worked like home or end.
There were different shortcuts from app to app and today I have learned that even the one shortcut I thought was consistent from app tp app on Mac, CMD-X, CMD-C and CMD-V aren't consistent as Finder isn't lacking CMD-x, they have just decided to do it differently so you use CMD-shift-V instead to paste by cutting (?), breaking to consistency even of that.
It is like the (effective, not written) building regulations in my area:
Just make sure your house doesn't look similar to any other house in the area and you should be good.
And yet I have asked for a Macbook for my new laptop. After 10 years I just had to try. The last one was fantastic, only the OS was rage inducing even after 3 years.
This time however I have done my homework. I have a Mac mini, I have checked that the fn and ctrl key can now be put in their correct positions and there now exist a way to fix CMD-tab so it does the only logical and sane thing: switches between the last windows.
Cmd+X works in all text fields. Is stubbornly holding on to being different really worth the frustration for every newcomer as well as the inconsistency between files and text?
Even worse: There isn't even a clickable context menu entry for moving files instead of copying them, which further means the keyboard shortcut isn't displayed anywhere obvious either.
For each well thought-out detail Mac OS has at least one feature that just makes you scratch your head and ask yourself if this was really intentional.
lol, I've been using Apple laptops for 15 years and had no idea this was a thing. All this time I've just copy+pasted and then gone back to the source folder to delete the original.
It sounds like the “blinking animation” you’re encountering is a feature known as Spring-Loaded Folders, which has been a part of macOS since the 90s.
It’s intended to make it easier to move files and folders around without first opening a window for the destination. If you hold the dragged file over a folder a moment longer, the target folder will open in a new window where you can either drop the file or navigate more deeply by repeating the process.
To avoid this behavior, drop dragged files in the destination folders before the spring loading triggers.
Finder is a special beast, I think. It doesn’t seem to follow the same UX rules, possibly for legacy reasons. That’s no excuse, since it’s obviously one of the most used interfaces on Mac, but you’re right the UI is unintuitive by today’s standards. One of my favorite examples: when navigating folders with arrow keys, the enter key will rename the folder, and it takes a chord cmd-o to enter it. That’s not the best choice anymore, if it ever was.
Today I discovered a new Finder oddity and I'm not sure what triggered it: when I open any folder on any external USB harddrive (but not SSD!) finder opens the folder in a new window that contains no UI other than the area showing the files & folders. Going five folders deep means five separate windows. I have no idea what's going on because I know it didn't always behave that way.
I think yabai is far better for someone tiling window manager on Linux inclined. Rectangle is more like grandma asked how to have two windows side by side.
I don't currently have a Mac, but when I did and if I did I would definitely install brew before whatever other essential - how else am I going to install the latter? (I'd reluctantly open Terminal and Safari to do so, and then to be honest Alacritty and Firefox would probably beat anything for window management. I used to have it all scripted, so it actually would've been just Terminal git clone and run.)
You can move a file with shortcut keys but (very counter-intuitively) it's more paste while cutting rather than cut and paste. Hit Command+c like a copy but instead of Command+v hit Command+Option+v.
Add it to the long list on macOS and iOS of things Apple provides but are unintuitive and difficult/impossible to discover on your own.
Cutting removes the original content and puts it on the clipboard. If you could really cut a file, it would have to disappear until you pasted it somewhere.
Haha, I know what you mean. I grew up with several generations of macs through the nineties, and people still say that it's great.
I am still learning ways to make it better (thanks to all the replies) but I just don't think it's very good. Its supposed to be the best. It's neither beautiful nor intuitive (subjectively), but what really bothers me is that it's not an effective tool.
Who is it designed for? Beginners obviously find a lot of simple things difficult. My colleagues should be power users since they are developers using it for decades, but when we screenshare there's a big difference in efficiency - the most obvious one is all the time they spend on finding, moving, resizing, and reorganizing windows but there are so many other little things that add up as well.
> Something so basic as moving a file between two directories. Can you Command-X, Command-V it?
try Command-C, Command-Option-V. works for me :)
also, if you're in need of a launcher, Raycast is nice. i don't use any of their fancy AI stuff and opted out of data tracking. i have several window management functions there that are indispensable.
i know it's separate from the thread, but i thought i'd share another nice macos utility app. i have some bots and personal CLI tools running somewhat around the clock. amphetamine helps keep your mac alive through sessions, so you can run jobs or even just play music while 'sleeping'.
Of course this always brings to mind Apple's "Get a Mac" commercial parodying Windows Vista. Many years later, Apple has now become the parody. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxOIebkmrqs
Difference is that Microsoft loosened the prompts. Apple will likely solve the problem by removing the capability to assign those permissions, at least through UI
I also often think of this when I’m allowing yet another app to do something that I clearly want it to do.
“I see you’ve clicked the documents folder via this apps open dialog. Do you want to give it permission to access that folder that you just clicked on to access” infuriating.
What’s so annoying is that these constant alerts make the system potentially less secure as you get notification blindness. Same with how often iOS pops up the password dialog, you get so used to entering your password that it takes conscious effort to not do it by default an actually make sure it’s a legit password box and not a phish.
I recently experienced something similar. My Macbook had its logic board replaced and, as part of that, the OS was wiped. I restored it from a Time Machine backup and spent too long digging through the settings to make sure the correct apps had accessibility permission or screen sharing permission or full disk permissions. It was annoying and the not the kind of polished experience you want from a premium product.
I'm in the process right now of moving from a M2 MacBook Air to a M3 MacBook Pro. I was going to use Migration Assistant but decided last minute against it and decided to "rebuild" from scratch. I'm three hours in on re-setting everything up the way I want it. Does it suck? Yes. But I know exactly what I installed and gives me the ability to purge things I no longer need.
Recently a relative decided to use Huawei's migration app for the new phone. It deleted all music files. At least now I know my paranoia with such magic features wasn't unfounded.
Weird - I thought some genius had come up with a way of combining all the permissions you have given in one ssh-key like colour grid.
I think of all these app permissions (I have similar thoughts looking at iphone settings) as being some sort of Marie Kondo epiphany - I don't need a better UI - I need less stuff.
You just don't get access to the resource in the app. Like if you deny the calendar app from reading all your contacts, it works as if you didn't have any contacts.
Interesting idea. I imagine they could go in some sort of permissions drawer/ list that has a badge letting you know an app is waiting. Any app that you’re currently interacting with and is up front could pop the dialog the same way it does now.
I prefer to maintain the security issues and look for a UX solution.
Okta reinvented the TLS wheel and put a single SAAS provider into the middle of the wheel to manage it for you. They also added identity and access control from the center.
Readit News
I was very efficient in my Arch environment that I have tweaked gradually for over a decade so I was quite reluctant to make the move.
Trying to keep an open mind, I told myself that at least I will get the pleasure of using the amazingly intuitive and beautiful UIs that Apple have been tweaking since before I was even born!
Imagine my disappointment. Simple things are slow and annoying. Difficult things are impossible.
Something so basic as moving a file between two directories. Can you Command-X, Command-V it? No. If both folders are open in Finder tabs you can drag the file to the tab, then wait for a blinking animation to complete before you are allowed to drop it into the target folder.
I guess you should open both folders as separate windows and then drag. But that creates even more windows, and window management in Macos is just impossible to tweak, so you are forced to use Apple's weird gesture-based paradigm. It might feel productive since you make so many animations happen but switching to the window you're thinking of should - and could - take fractions of a second and feel like an extension of your mind but in this new reality it's more like choreographing a bizarre window ballet even when you get used to it.
Things could be so much better. But hey, the hardware seems pretty good.
Hehe. Skill issue.
Cmd+C puts it on the pasteboard, (doesn't matter whether you want to move it or copy it)
Cmd+Option+V moves to destination
Cmd+V copies to destination
Different shortcuts from app to app. Back when I used Mac last time it frustrated me to no end that the simple system that works everywhere on Windows and Linux:
- home / end for start / end of line
- arrow left /right to move one character at at time
- ctrl to move one word at a time
- shift combines nicely with all these in case you need to select the text you move across
while on Mac of course home and end doesn't exist (bonus point for there being two keys there that could have been home and end or page up and page down, but that even the most dyed in the wool Mac users I know cannot explain what they are for) and while I think it is rather consistent now, back then it wasn't consistent that CMD - arrow worked like home or end.
There were different shortcuts from app to app and today I have learned that even the one shortcut I thought was consistent from app tp app on Mac, CMD-X, CMD-C and CMD-V aren't consistent as Finder isn't lacking CMD-x, they have just decided to do it differently so you use CMD-shift-V instead to paste by cutting (?), breaking to consistency even of that.
It is like the (effective, not written) building regulations in my area:
Just make sure your house doesn't look similar to any other house in the area and you should be good.
And yet I have asked for a Macbook for my new laptop. After 10 years I just had to try. The last one was fantastic, only the OS was rage inducing even after 3 years.
This time however I have done my homework. I have a Mac mini, I have checked that the fn and ctrl key can now be put in their correct positions and there now exist a way to fix CMD-tab so it does the only logical and sane thing: switches between the last windows.
Still: wish me luck.
Even worse: There isn't even a clickable context menu entry for moving files instead of copying them, which further means the keyboard shortcut isn't displayed anywhere obvious either.
For each well thought-out detail Mac OS has at least one feature that just makes you scratch your head and ask yourself if this was really intentional.
It’s intended to make it easier to move files and folders around without first opening a window for the destination. If you hold the dragged file over a folder a moment longer, the target folder will open in a new window where you can either drop the file or navigate more deeply by repeating the process.
To avoid this behavior, drop dragged files in the destination folders before the spring loading triggers.
I use Cmd+X Cmd+V all the time, so I'm quite confused by your issue.
But indeed Total Commander is the thing I miss the most.
After years of searching, it's the closest Mac replacement for Total Commander that I've found, it's really great.
I don't currently have a Mac, but when I did and if I did I would definitely install brew before whatever other essential - how else am I going to install the latter? (I'd reluctantly open Terminal and Safari to do so, and then to be honest Alacritty and Firefox would probably beat anything for window management. I used to have it all scripted, so it actually would've been just Terminal git clone and run.)
Add it to the long list on macOS and iOS of things Apple provides but are unintuitive and difficult/impossible to discover on your own.
I am still learning ways to make it better (thanks to all the replies) but I just don't think it's very good. Its supposed to be the best. It's neither beautiful nor intuitive (subjectively), but what really bothers me is that it's not an effective tool.
Who is it designed for? Beginners obviously find a lot of simple things difficult. My colleagues should be power users since they are developers using it for decades, but when we screenshare there's a big difference in efficiency - the most obvious one is all the time they spend on finding, moving, resizing, and reorganizing windows but there are so many other little things that add up as well.
Good luck.
https://asahilinux.org/
try Command-C, Command-Option-V. works for me :)
also, if you're in need of a launcher, Raycast is nice. i don't use any of their fancy AI stuff and opted out of data tracking. i have several window management functions there that are indispensable.
“I see you’ve clicked the documents folder via this apps open dialog. Do you want to give it permission to access that folder that you just clicked on to access” infuriating.
What’s so annoying is that these constant alerts make the system potentially less secure as you get notification blindness. Same with how often iOS pops up the password dialog, you get so used to entering your password that it takes conscious effort to not do it by default an actually make sure it’s a legit password box and not a phish.
I think of all these app permissions (I have similar thoughts looking at iphone settings) as being some sort of Marie Kondo epiphany - I don't need a better UI - I need less stuff.
I prefer to maintain the security issues and look for a UX solution.