Selecting files — FlyingFiles manual

Cursor vs. selection

A panel has two different things:

the cursor — always exactly one row, marked with orange lines;
the selection — any number of rows, bold and highlighted in color.

Commands (copy, move, delete, compress, Copy link) follow one rule:

If there is a selection, they act on the selected items, and the cursor position doesn't matter. If there is no selection, they act on the item under the cursor.

The /.. row is never selected.

The exception is drag and drop: a row outside the selection that you grab with the mouse is dragged on its own, and the selection stays untouched.

Keyboard

Key	Action
`Space` or `Insert`	selects or deselects the item and moves the cursor to the next one
`Ctrl`+`Space` (Windows), `Cmd`+`Space` or `Control`+`Space` (macOS)	selects or deselects without moving the cursor
`+`	selects everything
`-`	clears the selection
`*`	inverts the selection
`Shift`+`↑` / `↓`	selects a range from where you started
`Shift`+`Home` / `End`	a range to the start / end of the list
`Shift`+`PageUp` / `PageDown`	a range one page at a time

The +, - and * keys also work on the numeric keypad.

Selecting with Shift replaces the current selection with the range from the row where you first pressed Shift to the current row. Plain arrow keys without Shift never change the selection.

macOS: Cmd+Space usually opens Spotlight, and Control+Space is often the shortcut for switching input sources. If the system takes over both shortcuts, select with Space or with the mouse and Cmd.

Mouse

Action	Result
click	puts the cursor on the row, doesn't change the selection
`Cmd`+click (macOS) / `Ctrl`+click (Windows)	selects or deselects the row
`Shift`+click	selects a range
double click	same as `Enter`
right click	puts the cursor on the clicked row (without changing the selection) and opens the context menu
dragging a row	copies or moves the selection if the row belongs to it, otherwise just that row — Drag and drop

Because a right click moves the cursor, context menu commands act on the file you clicked — unless something is selected, in which case, following the rule, they act on the selection.

On a row that's already selected, Cmd+click / Ctrl+click and Shift+click change the selection only when you release the button — and only if you haven't started dragging. That way you can hold down a key (e.g. Shift, which moves when dragging), grab a selected row and drag the whole selection. Finder and File Explorer work the same way.

After an operation

After a successful copy or move, the selection in the source panel is cleared. The exception: when you drag a single row from outside the selection, the selection stays — even after that row is moved.
If a move is cancelled or ends with an error, the app restores the selection of the items that stayed where they were.
Refreshing the panel (Cmd+R / Ctrl+R) and turning hidden files on or off clear the selection.
The info bar below the list always describes the item under the cursor, not the selection. While you drag files over a panel, its bar shows instead what dropping will do, or why you can't drop there.

Tip: + selects all items in the folder, with no mask. To gather files by name or extension from many folders, use search.