data/sessions/explorer-move-to-folder-2/memory.md

Memory: explorer-move-to-folder-2

Overview

Move a file into a subfolder using the keyboard: select the file, cut, open the destination and paste. Use this when a file has to be relocated and nothing should remain at the source. Cut marks the file rather than removing it, so the move only completes at the paste. The recorded trace leaves report.pdf in dest\ only.

Prerequisites

• A desktop environment with a file manager, or a shell.
• A file to move and a destination folder, both existing before the task starts and both identifiable by name.
• Write access to both the source folder and the destination. A move deletes from one and creates in the other, so read access to the file alone is not enough.
• Clarity that the result is a move, not a copy. Nothing must remain at the source when the task finishes.
• No file of the same name already in the destination — it is overwritten without a useful warning, and the original is gone by then, so the overwritten data is unrecoverable.
• Both locations on the same volume, where that can be arranged. A move within a volume renames an entry; a move across volumes copies and then deletes, which takes time proportional to the file and can fail partway.

Steps

Step 1 — Move-cursor at (250, 386)

The task is to move a file into a subfolder so that nothing is left behind, using the keyboard only, so the file has to be selected first. Move the cursor onto the report.pdf row. The move is recorded as its own step because a click sent on its own does not always land; moving to the target first and clicking separately is the dependable sequence, and both halves are real actions in the trace.

Step 2 — Left-click at (250, 386)

Move the cursor and Left-click to select report.pdf.

Step 3 — Press: Ctrl+X

Press Ctrl+X to cut the file. Unlike the macOS equivalent, Windows has a real cut for files, so the decision to move rather than copy is made here at the source rather than at the destination. The file is not removed yet — it is marked to be relocated when a paste follows, and its icon dims to show that.

Step 4 — Move-cursor at (212, 133)

Move the cursor onto the dest folder row, the first in the list, ahead of the click.

Step 5 — Double-click at (212, 133)

Move the cursor and Double-click dest to open it, so the paste lands inside the destination folder rather than in the folder currently shown.

Step 6 — Press: Ctrl+V

Press Ctrl+V to paste. Because the file was cut rather than copied, this completes a move: the file now exists in dest and is gone from corpus-seed.

Notes & Edge Cases

1. The cut keystroke and the copy keystroke are one key apart and produce identical destinations. Verify the source folder no longer holds the file; that is the only difference visible anywhere afterwards.
2. Nothing has moved until the paste. Cut only marks the file, so an interruption between the two keystrokes leaves everything in place with nothing to indicate a move was attempted.
3. The paste goes into whatever window has focus at the time. Opening the destination between the two keystrokes is what decides where the file lands — if that step fails, the paste puts it back where it started and looks like success.
4. The double-click has to land on a folder. On a file it opens the file in an application instead, focus follows it, and the paste then goes somewhere entirely unintended.
5. A move that overwrites destroys the target silently, and the source is already gone by then. Check the destination for a same-named file before pasting; there is nothing to undo to afterwards.
6. The clipboard is shared with every other running application, so anything that copies or cuts in between substitutes a different file with no error.
7. Nothing is reported when this works. Confirm from both ends — the file present at the destination and absent from the source.