Vintuitive

I want it all, and I want it easily and effortlessly. And you can have it all, with this simple keyboard shortcut.

Select All with this swift Keyboard Kung Fu move

As we saw with cutting, copying and pasting, using a keyboard shortcut is often much easier and more productive when completing common tasks.

How do you currently go about selecting all the files in a folder, or all the text on a page? Do you click and drag diagonally across the files or text? Or do you right-click and then choose ‘Select All’?

Use the Command-A keyboard shortcut to achieve the same result with very little effort:

⌘A = select all

Using the Select All keyboard shortcut with files

As mentioned above, this nifty little move works with both files and with text. If you find yourself needing to move all the files in a folder, Command-A will enable you to select all the files in any given folder very quickly and effortlessly.

Here’s an example of how Command-A could be used with a previous lesson, Send To Trash to select all the files in a folder and to trash them:

⌘A then ⌘delete = select all those files and send them straight to the trash

Using the Select All keyboard shortcut with text

It can also be useful when editing large slabs of text. Command-A to highlight all the text and then copy or cut or adjust the font size, colour, etc.

Here’s an example of how Command-A could be used with a previous lesson Make Your Make Speak to select all the text on a page and trigger the text-to-speach feature to have the Mac read it out loud to you:

⌘A then ⌃⌘S = select all the text and have the Mac speak all the text on a page.

It really is such a simple tip but it’s power is great.