Tech Tips

Selecting Multiple Files

Question: How do you select multiple items in Windows Explorer?

Answer: Selecting or "highlighting" a file is one of the most common tasks you perform while managing your files. You typically have to select a file before you a copy, move, or delete it. But what if you want to do the same thing to more than one file at once? If you have many files you want to work with, it can be tedious to have to deal with them one at a time. You could try to highlight them all with the mouse, but that can be frustrating and might not always work as you would like.

Thankfully, there are two simple keyboard shortcuts you can use to simplify the task of selecting multiple files. If you want to select a row of files, say on your Desktop, you can do it with the "Shift" key. Click on the first file that you want to select, then press and hold down the shift key, then click on the last file you want to select - all the files in between the first and the last should now be highlighted. You can now perform whatever action on them that you would perform on a single file.

If the files you want to select aren't in a row, you can use the Ctrl (control) key to select them. Click on the first file that you want to select, then press and hold down the "Ctr"l key and - one at a time - click on the other files that you want to select. You can release the Ctrl key when you're finished.

These techniques also work in e mail programs such as Outlook Express.

Comments