How dragand works

The basics

dragand lives at the right edge of your screen: a small panel that slides in only when you need it. The rest of the time, it stays out of sight.

• While you drag a file, it slides in at its usual spot on the edge, showing Hold on top and Keep below. Rest on it for a moment and it opens into the full drop panel.
• Rest the pointer against the right edge for half a second without dragging, and it comes in right where your pointer is, showing Files and Clipboard. Click one to open the panel on that tab; click it again to close it. You can also press ⌃⌥⌘S for the shelf.
• Once you're done, it slides away on its own. If you didn't use it, it goes straight away and never blocks the scroll bar underneath.
• It never comes in over another app's full-screen window (a video, a game, an app) on that display. The shortcuts still work there.
• Dock on the right? Put dragand on the left edge instead, in Settings › General › Edge. Everything works the same way, mirrored.

Right-click dragand at the edge for its menu: open the shelf or Clipboard, pause clipboard history for an hour, Settings, and Quit.

In three steps

1. Drag a file to the right edge. dragand slides in at the edge as a small panel, with Hold on top and Keep below. Rest on it and it opens into the full drop panel.
2. Drop it on Hold or Keep. Hold keeps a copy for 24 hours. Keep takes the file itself until you need it. The shelf peeks open with Undo.
3. Drag it out where you need it. Rest the pointer against the right edge and click Files, or press ⌃⌥⌘S. Then drag the file into Finder, Mail, a browser or any app.

Hold: a copy for 24 hours

Hold keeps a copy of a file on the shelf for 24 hours, then clears it. Your original never moves.

Drop a file on the top zone, Hold 24h. It's for anything you need in a moment: an upload, an email attachment, a file you're handing to another app.

• On the same disk, the copy is instant and takes no extra space until one of them changes.
• From another disk or a network drive, dragand copies it with a progress bar and checks there is enough space first. Very large files ask before copying.
• Hover a held item for Keep (no more timer) or Extend (another 24 hours).
• If you edit the original afterwards, the item shows Original changed · Refresh, so you can update the copy.

Keep: the file itself, until you need it

Keep puts the file itself on the shelf, out of its folder, with no timer, until you drag it out or put it back.

Drop on the bottom half, Keep here. You don't need to wait for the full drop panel: drop straight on dragand at the edge and the file goes to whichever half is under the pointer.

• Text dragged from an app becomes a clipboard item, if clipboard history is on. An image dragged from a browser is held. Neither can be kept this way, because there's no original file to move.
• Keeping a file from iCloud Drive or a shared folder moves it out, which removes it from your other devices or from other people. dragand warns you the first time.

Undo every action

Every drop, keep, removal and clear in dragand can be undone, with the Undo button or ⌘Z.

• After each drop, the shelf peeks open with the new item selected, and a one-line note at the top says what happened, with an Undo button and a bar showing the time left. It closes on its own after about five seconds. Hover the note to keep it open.
• Undo puts everything back as it was: a kept file returns to its folder and the item leaves the shelf.
• ⌘Z undoes the last action while that note is showing or the shelf is open.
• Removing an item, deleting a clip and clearing clipboard history also come with Undo. Clear All History asks first.

Put Back to the original folder

Put Back returns a kept file to the exact folder it came from, in one click.

Hover a Kept file on the shelf and choose Put Back, or Show in Finder to see where it is. Put Back comes with Undo. If the original folder no longer exists, dragand asks where to save the file instead.

After 7 days, dragand offers to move week-old Kept files to Downloads, so the shelf doesn't fill up for good. It never deletes them, and "Not now" asks again a week later.

Dragging out

Drag anything off the shelf into any app: Finder, Mail, a browser upload box or any other app that takes a file.

Each drag hands over a fresh copy, so the item on the shelf is never damaged. Where you drop decides what happens next:

The 24-hour rule

A held copy clears 24 hours after it lands on the shelf, unless you keep it. Only the copy is cleared, never your original.

Held copies count real time: 24 hours on the clock, whether your Mac is awake, asleep or off. A few rules make sure nothing disappears at the wrong moment:

• Your original is never touched. Only the shelf copy is cleared.
• Nothing clears in the first hour after your Mac wakes up or dragand launches (see below).
• If the original was deleted in the meantime, the item says Original deleted with a Keep link. Keep it if you still need it; otherwise the copy clears on time like any other.
• Nothing clears while you're using it, for example mid-drag or in Quick Look.

Each held item shows its time left in the Files panel, so you can see what clears next and keep it if you need it longer.

Never clears on wake

Nothing on the shelf clears in the first hour after your Mac wakes up or dragand starts.

The 24 hours keep running while your Mac sleeps, so a file can come due overnight. Instead of vanishing the moment you open the lid, it waits for that hour, which gives you time to keep it or drag it out. After a sleep of an hour or more, the Files panel shows a short note once: "Nothing clears for the next hour."

iCloud Drive

dragand works with iCloud Drive, including cloud-only files: it downloads them first, then holds or keeps them.

Files in iCloud Drive can be "cloud-only": the name is on your Mac, the contents are in iCloud. When you drop one, dragand downloads it first and shows progress. The 24 hours only start once the copy is complete. If you're offline, the item waits and finishes when you're back online. Keeping a cloud-only file is blocked while you're offline.

Folders and permissions

Your shelf is a normal folder you choose the first time you open dragand, ~/Shelf by default. Inside it, Hold copies are kept out of Spotlight and Time Machine, so they don't clutter searches or backups. Kept files are backed up as usual.

Because dragand comes from the Mac App Store, macOS only lets it move files out of folders you allow. Downloads is always allowed. The first time you Keep a file from Desktop, Documents or any other folder, dragand asks you to allow it. If you don't, it holds a copy instead and leaves the original where it is. You can change this any time in Settings › Files.

Shortcuts

Two shortcuts work from anywhere: ⌃⌥⌘S opens the shelf and ⌃⌘V opens clipboard history. The rest work inside the panel.

You can change the first two in Settings › General. A new shortcut needs ⌃, or ⌘ with ⌥, so it can't take over typing or ⌘V. One another app already uses is refused.

Settings

• General: open at login (off until you turn it on), sounds, and under On the edge: the right or left edge, which display dragand comes in on, where on the edge it comes in for a drag, its inset, opening Files or Clipboard when you rest on them, and shortcuts.
• Files: how long Hold lasts, when to remind you about Kept files, the size above which dragand asks before copying, the shelf folder, and the folders you've allowed.
• Clipboard: turn history on or off, how long to keep it, apps to never save from, and Clear All.
• About: the app's icon and version, rate on the App Store, privacy policy, support.