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Authors: Chris Seibold
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folder, click the item in
the Finder and then select File → Duplicate (or press ⌘-D), and Mountain
Lion generates a brand-new copy of that item with the word
“copy” appended to its name. Your original item remains
untouched while you hack away at the copy.
Copy files to a new location on the same disk
When you drag files from one spot to another on
the same disk, OS X moves those files to the new location
without making a copy. To copy files to
another location on the same disk instead, hold Option while you
drag the files to the new location. Once you release the mouse
button, the original file(s) stay put, and you get a copy in the
destination location.
Conversely, when you drag files from one disk to another,
OS X copies them. To make it move them
instead, hold down the ⌘ key while you drag.
Eject a drive or disk
If you’ve got external drives hooked to your Mac,
at some point you’ll want to eject them. Just yanking a drive
out is a bad idea; if data is still being written to the drive,
you might lose it.
You have a few ways of ejecting drives and disks.
The classic way is to drag it to the Trash (when you do, the
Trash’s icon changes to an Eject icon). If you’ve got a Finder
window open, you can also eject it directly from the
sidebar—simply click thenext to the drive’s icon. If a drive
won’t eject, Mountain Lion will tell you which application is
using files on that drive (and preventing you from ejecting
it).
If you want to remount a drive (use the drive
after you’ve ejected it) that you left plugged in, you can
either remount it with Disk Utility
( /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility ) or
simply disconnect the drive from your Mac and then reconnect
it.
Reformat a disk
If you’ve got a new disk, it might not be in the
right format. Most flash drives and many pocket drives come
formatted as FAT32 disks, but some arrive unformatted. Your Mac
prefers the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system, and if you
don’t need to share files with another operating system (such as
Windows), this format is your best choice. To erase the drive
and format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), head to /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility .
Select the disk you want to reformat from the list on the left
side of Disk Utility, click the Erase tab, select the format you
want, and then click Erase. Remember: reformatting erases all
the information on the disk.
Compress files and folders
If you’re going to burn a bunch of data to a disk
or if you want to minimize upload times, you can compress files
and folders. Mountain Lion gives you an easy way to pull this
off: right-click or Control-click a file, and then select
Compress from the pop-up menu, and Mountain Lion creates a copy
of that item with the same name, but with the suffix
.zip
appended. The amount of space
this saves depends on the type of file: compressing a QuickTime
movie (
.mov
) doesn’t save
as much space as compressing a folder full of text files does,
for example.
Duplicating Optical Disks
DVDs and CDs are getting less popular for sharing
files because of the availability of cheap flash drives, but they’re
still common enough that you might need to make backup copies of
important data stored on a CD or DVD. If you have a desktop Mac, you
could install two DVD drives and copy DVDs and CDs disk to disk, but
that option is available only on high-end Macs (although you could
use an external USB drive with other Macs). No worries, though; with
Disk Utility, you can easily duplicate that DVD or CD and burn it to
a different disk.
Fire up Disk Utility ( /Applications/Utilities/Disk
Utility ) and then select the CD or DVD you want to copy
from the list of available disks. Next, click the New Image button
at the top of the window, choose “DVD/CD master” from the Image
Format pop-up menu, and then choose a location with sufficient
the Finder and then select File → Duplicate (or press ⌘-D), and Mountain
Lion generates a brand-new copy of that item with the word
“copy” appended to its name. Your original item remains
untouched while you hack away at the copy.
Copy files to a new location on the same disk
When you drag files from one spot to another on
the same disk, OS X moves those files to the new location
without making a copy. To copy files to
another location on the same disk instead, hold Option while you
drag the files to the new location. Once you release the mouse
button, the original file(s) stay put, and you get a copy in the
destination location.
Conversely, when you drag files from one disk to another,
OS X copies them. To make it move them
instead, hold down the ⌘ key while you drag.
Eject a drive or disk
If you’ve got external drives hooked to your Mac,
at some point you’ll want to eject them. Just yanking a drive
out is a bad idea; if data is still being written to the drive,
you might lose it.
You have a few ways of ejecting drives and disks.
The classic way is to drag it to the Trash (when you do, the
Trash’s icon changes to an Eject icon). If you’ve got a Finder
window open, you can also eject it directly from the
sidebar—simply click thenext to the drive’s icon. If a drive
won’t eject, Mountain Lion will tell you which application is
using files on that drive (and preventing you from ejecting
it).
If you want to remount a drive (use the drive
after you’ve ejected it) that you left plugged in, you can
either remount it with Disk Utility
( /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility ) or
simply disconnect the drive from your Mac and then reconnect
it.
Reformat a disk
If you’ve got a new disk, it might not be in the
right format. Most flash drives and many pocket drives come
formatted as FAT32 disks, but some arrive unformatted. Your Mac
prefers the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system, and if you
don’t need to share files with another operating system (such as
Windows), this format is your best choice. To erase the drive
and format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), head to /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility .
Select the disk you want to reformat from the list on the left
side of Disk Utility, click the Erase tab, select the format you
want, and then click Erase. Remember: reformatting erases all
the information on the disk.
Compress files and folders
If you’re going to burn a bunch of data to a disk
or if you want to minimize upload times, you can compress files
and folders. Mountain Lion gives you an easy way to pull this
off: right-click or Control-click a file, and then select
Compress from the pop-up menu, and Mountain Lion creates a copy
of that item with the same name, but with the suffix
.zip
appended. The amount of space
this saves depends on the type of file: compressing a QuickTime
movie (
.mov
) doesn’t save
as much space as compressing a folder full of text files does,
for example.
Duplicating Optical Disks
DVDs and CDs are getting less popular for sharing
files because of the availability of cheap flash drives, but they’re
still common enough that you might need to make backup copies of
important data stored on a CD or DVD. If you have a desktop Mac, you
could install two DVD drives and copy DVDs and CDs disk to disk, but
that option is available only on high-end Macs (although you could
use an external USB drive with other Macs). No worries, though; with
Disk Utility, you can easily duplicate that DVD or CD and burn it to
a different disk.
Fire up Disk Utility ( /Applications/Utilities/Disk
Utility ) and then select the CD or DVD you want to copy
from the list of available disks. Next, click the New Image button
at the top of the window, choose “DVD/CD master” from the Image
Format pop-up menu, and then choose a location with sufficient
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