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Move a pile of downloads into one folder, on a Mac

Updated 14 November 20263 minute read

The short answer

Select the files, drag them up to the notch, hold them over More, and let go on Into a new folder, Move to… or a usual folder. Undo puts them all back.

The notch grown into a drawer of jobs for 14 photos — Held over More, the notch grows to show the jobs every file has.

Steps

Select the files. In Downloads, Command-click each one, Shift-click to take a run of them, or press Command-A for everything.
Drag them up to the notch. It shows how many you’re carrying, like “14 photos”. The jobs for their kind come first.
Hold them over More, the last tile. The notch grows to show the jobs for any file.
Let go on the one you want.
- Into a new folder makes a folder beside them called New Folder With Items, as Finder does, and moves them in. Rename the folder in Finder afterwards.
- Move to… asks where, with a folder picker. Choose Move Here.
- Move to Desktop, Documents or Downloads moves them straight there.
- Move to Trash, or Zip them into one to send them as one file.
“Let go: Into a new folder. Gathered together, with Undo.”
Changed your mind? Choose Undo while the result is in the notch: the files go back where they were, and the empty folder goes.
All 14 in one folder.

Good to know

Any kind of file works, mixed or not: photos, PDFs, zips, installers, documents.
Copy instead of move: Copy to Desktop, Documents or Downloads leaves the originals where they are.
Renaming a batch? With several files, Rename them opens a renamer that shows every new name before anything changes.
The first time Drip moves files in your Desktop, Documents or Downloads folder, macOS asks whether it may. Choose Allow.

Without Drip

Finder does the first one: select the files, Control-click, and choose New Folder with Selection. Drip puts that, Move to…, the usual folders and the Trash in one place for any drag, with Undo.