How to Select Multiple Files in Windows
By Robert MocaUpdated 6 min read
The short answer
Hold Ctrl and click to pick individual files. Hold Shift and click the first and last to take a whole run. Ctrl + A selects everything. To select by type, search *.jpg in the folder, then press Ctrl + A on the results.
Four things worth knowing
- Ctrl adds one at a time; Shift selects everything between two clicks. Combining them handles almost every case.
- Ctrl + Shift + click extends the selection without discarding what you have already picked.
- Invert selection is the fastest route when you want everything except a few files.
- Searching for a pattern and then selecting all is the way to act on one file type across many subfolders.
Selecting files is one of those things nobody ever teaches you and everybody half-knows. Most people Ctrl-click their way through everything, which is fine for four files and genuinely painful for four hundred. The full set takes a couple of minutes to learn and you will use it every day afterwards.
| Method | How | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Individual files | Ctrl + click each one | A handful scattered around |
| A continuous run | Click the first, Shift + click the last | Anything sorted into order |
| Everything | Ctrl + A | The whole folder |
| Extend a run | Shift + arrow keys | Adjusting a selection by one |
| Add a run to a selection | Ctrl + Shift + click | Two separate blocks |
| Drag a box | Click empty space and drag | A visual cluster in icon view |
| Everything except a few | Select the few, then Invert selection | Keeping three out of fifty |
| By type or name | Search *.jpg, then Ctrl + A | One file type across subfolders |
Ctrl and Shift, and the combination people miss
Ctrl + click toggles a single file in or out of the selection. The bit people miss is that Ctrl-clicking something already selected removes it, which is the quick way to fix an over-selection without starting the whole thing again.
Shift + click selects everything between the last file you clicked and this one. Sort the folder first — by name, date or size, and a Shift-click selects exactly the run you want. Sorting by date modified and Shift-clicking is the fastest way to grab everything from a particular day.
The combination worth learning is Ctrl + Shift + click. Select a run with Shift, then hold both Ctrl and Shift and click elsewhere: you get a second run added to the first, rather than the first being discarded. Two or three blocks of files in one selection, no Ctrl-clicking each one.
Dragging a box
Click on empty space in the folder and drag, and a rectangle appears; everything it touches gets selected. This works best in Large icons or Tiles view, where the files are laid out in a proper grid rather than a long thin list.
The failure mode is starting the drag on a file rather than on empty space, which moves that file instead of selecting anything. If you realise mid-drag, press Esc before releasing the mouse button and the move is cancelled.
Checkboxes, for touchscreens and shaky hands
File Explorer can put a checkbox on each item, which removes the need to hold anything down at all. It is under View → Show → Item check boxes on Windows 11, or the View tab → Item check boxes on Windows 10. If you ever select files on a touchscreen or a trackpad, turn this on.
This is genuinely useful on a touchscreen, and on any machine where an accidental Ctrl release loses a selection you spent a minute building. There is also a checkbox in the header that selects everything.
Invert selection
When you want everything except a handful of files, select the handful and then choose Invert selection, on the Home tab in Windows 10 or under the ⋯ menu in Windows 11. Selecting three files and inverting is enormously quicker than Ctrl-clicking the other forty-seven, and it is much harder to get wrong.
Selecting by file type or name
This is the one that turns an hour into a minute, and hardly anybody knows it. File Explorer's search box is really a filter, and Ctrl + A applies to whatever the filter left behind. Once that clicks, jobs like deleting every .tmp file scattered across a folder tree stop being jobs at all.
Select every file of one type, across subfolders
Open the top-level folder you want to search.
Click the search box, type
*.jpg, and press Enter.The results include matching files in every subfolder, which is what makes this powerful.
Press Ctrl + A.
Everything found is selected, regardless of which folder it came from.
Drag to a destination, or press Ctrl + C then paste.
The folder structure is not preserved — everything lands flat in the destination.
| Type this | Finds |
|---|---|
*.jpg | All JPEG files |
*.jpg OR *.png | Either type |
size:>100MB | Files over 100 megabytes |
datemodified:this week | Recently changed files |
kind:document | Documents of any format |
name:invoice | Filenames containing 'invoice' |
ext:pdf size:>10MB | Large PDFs — filters combine |
What to do with the selection
- Ctrl + C then Ctrl + V to copy; Ctrl + X then Ctrl + V to move.
- Shift + Delete to delete permanently, bypassing the Recycle Bin. Worth knowing, worth being careful with.
- F2 to rename. With several files selected, typing one name and pressing Enter renames them all as
name (1),name (2)and so on. - Right-click → Properties on a multiple selection shows the combined size, which is the quick way to check whether a set will fit on a drive.
- Right-click → Send to → Compressed (zipped) folder archives the lot in one step.
Common questions
How do I select multiple files that are not next to each other?
Hold Ctrl and click each one. Ctrl + click also removes a file from the selection if you click one that is already selected, so you can correct mistakes without starting over. To add a whole run to an existing selection, hold Ctrl + Shift and click.
How do I select all files of one type in a folder?
Type a pattern such as *.jpg into File Explorer's search box, press Enter, then press Ctrl + A. The search covers subfolders too, so this selects every matching file beneath the current folder, which is what makes it much faster than clicking through each one.
How do I select everything except a few files?
Select the files you want to exclude, then use Invert selection — on the Home tab in Windows 10, or under the ⋯ menu in Windows 11. Alternatively press Ctrl + A to select everything and then Ctrl + click the few you want to drop.
Why does dragging move a file instead of selecting?
Because the drag started on top of a file rather than on empty space. Begin the drag in a blank area of the folder window. If you notice mid-drag, press Esc before releasing the mouse button and the move is cancelled.
Sources
Each source is listed with the specific claim it supports.
Keyboard shortcuts in Windows — Microsoft Support
Supports: The Ctrl + A, Shift + arrow, Ctrl + click and Shift + click selection behaviours, and the F2 rename shortcut.
Shell namespace — Microsoft Learn
Supports: That File Explorer search results form a virtual view spanning subfolders, which is why Ctrl + A selects across folder boundaries.