Dragging Files and Tabs in Safari

 

Just like any other Mac applications, Safari supports dragging in files from the Finder or other applications such as iPhoto. If you just drag a file into a regular browser window, however, all it will do is display the file in a Safari window. The useful part comes when a website is asking for you to upload a file. Instead of clicking ‘Choose File’, you can drag the file you want to use and drop it directly on the button. A small green plus sign will appear next to your cursor, and the file is selected, no matter how deeply nested it is on your hard drive. This is a small thing, but it can save a lot of time if you have a file open in the Finder already before you upload it to a website.

Whenever you visit a  website with a “Choose File” button where you have to navigate until you locate the file you want to upload? Now, Safari makes that whole upload process a breeze.

1. With Safari open, go to a website with an upload page, such as ImageShack.
    
2. Now, drag and drop any file on your computer onto the ”Choose File” button.
    
3. It should then appear beside the “Choose File” button.

While we’re on the subject of drag and drop, let me explain what you can do by dragging a tab or favicon (the small graphic to the left of the URL in the address bar). If you drag a tab by its name and move it to the left or right on the tab bar, the bar is reorganized. Not very exciting. But drag the tab away from the bar, and it changes into a tiny preview of the page it’s currently showing. When you let go, the image expands into a whole new window and removes the page from the tabs of the previous one. You can also do this the opposite way; drag a tab into the tab bar of a different window and it will be added to the second window and removed from the first.

You can do all of this when dragging the favicon of a page, except for creating a new window. If you drop the favicon onto an open tab, the page is replaced with the one you dragged over. You can create a new tab with the page by dropping its favicon on the tab bar, to the right of the already open tabs.