Here's a quick and easy guide for copying or moving multiple files on macOS. I personally find it a lot quicker than going through finder and dragging and dropping files.
Copying files and directories
If you want to copy files the the cp command is easy.
So you would start by opening Terminal (/Applications/Utilities). Then, using the following simnple command:
cp where you want file to go
SO If I wanted to move dog.jpg from my Pictures directory to Dogs directory, I would type the following into Terminal:
cp ~/Pictures/dog.jpg ~/Pictures/Dogs
Then hit return. That file will now still be in my pictures directory but also in my dogs direcotry too. Note: We use the tilde (~) symbol to denote home directory.
If you want to copy the entire content of a directory then we need to add and option to the cp command. That option is -R. This tells the cp command to copy every item in the directory. So every file and sub directory will also be copied to the location you want to copy the files and directories to. So you can copy a directory from your Documents to your Documents folder like this:
cp -R ~/Desktop/NewDirectory ~/Documents
Moving files and directories
This method is just as simple as well. All you need to do is replace cp with `mv``
So for example:
To move a single file you would use the following:
mv ~/Pictures/dog.jpg ~/Pictures/Dogs
To move an entire directory, sub directory and files you would use:
mv ~/Desktop/NewFolder ~/Documents/Important or whatever the names and location of your personal files are.
