Moving a big file on Mac

By honest nan, 28 July, 2021

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

I am trying to move a really big txt file from the downloads folder to an SD card. I tried copying the text to the clipboard and pasting it with shift-command v. That didn't work. I wonder if the poor clipboard can't handle that much text. It's a version of the Bible. Is there another way to move the file? Thanks.

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Comments

By Ravenpaw on Thursday, July 29, 2021 - 10:28

Copy/paste the file itself, not the text; cmd/c the file in Downloads, navigate to your SD card, then cmd/v.

By layly on Wednesday, September 29, 2021 - 10:28

Having had devices disconnect during backups, I try to use rsync in the terminal for large or incomplete copies.

It should work with

rsync [source file path] [destination path]

If the copy fails part way through you can add "--partial --append" to the command line to make it continue the copy rather than restarting.

By Bruce Harrell on Wednesday, September 29, 2021 - 10:28

Hi. focus on the file; press command c; move focus to your destination; press command v to paste the file (meaning adding a copy of the file to your destination without doing anything to the original file)(, or press option command v to move the file (meaning removing it from where you pressed command c and moving it to where you pressed option command v).