Yoink is a utility available on the Mac App Store that I find to be extremely useful. When you begin dragging a file on a Mac with Yoink installed, the utility’s interface appears on the side of the screen. Yoink serves as a temporary holding area for files on your Mac as you move them between apps, folders, and wherever else in the Finder.
There are few apps that I consider to be must-haves on OS X, but Yoink is certainly one of them. Moving files around the Mac is easier with Yoink installed, especially if you make the most of using full screen apps. Watch our video walkthrough inside to see how.
After installing Yoink, it’s just a matter of setting up its preferences to get going. I recommend enabling the option for the app to Launch at login so that it’s always available.
There are also preferences for establishing when the Yoink interface will appear on screen. By default, Yoink is set to appear on the side of the screen whenever you drag a file using your mouse or trackpad. In my opinion, this is the best way to use Yoink.
That said, options are available to make Yoink appear manually via a keyboard shortcut. You can also make the Yoink holding area move to your mouse location when a drag is initiated.
Video walkthrough
Yoink’s preferences can be further configured by clicking on the gear icon at the bottom of its interface. From there, you can establish the location of the holding area window, along with its size.
Items are grouped into a stack when dragging more than one file into Yoink. Grouped items removed from Yoink will thus be removed as a group. If you hover over a stack of grouped files, you’ll see an icon that allows you to break apart all of the items in the stack. Doing so lets you manipulate each item in Yoink as individual files.
Yoink disappears after all of the items in its window have been removed. You can opt to use the sweep button in the bottom right-hand corner of its interface to clean out all items in one fell swoop.
Just reading this overview might not portray how useful such an app is, so be sure to watch the video walkthrough above for a visual look into its usage. Simply put, Yoink makes it easier to move files around OS X. If interested, head over to the Mac App Store where it can be downloaded for $6.99.
As a side note, if you’re keen on moving files between full screen apps, but wish to use features found natively within OS X, be sure to check out our tutorial for using Hot Corners with Mission Control.
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Damn. Didn’t think it’d actually be useful but after watching the walkthrough, it looks VERY impressive!
(PS. charge your Mac; OCD op)
Thank you, el3v3nty, I’m glad Yoink looks useful to you :)
Just thought I’d share this – there’s a free 15-day trial available on Yoink’s website: http://eternalstorms.at/yoink and useful tips to get the most out of it at http://eternalstorms.at/yoink/tips
Can anyone compare this to Dragon Drop?
went to check dragondrop as soon as i saw this post, then found out dragon drop is no longer in development…
Bummer. I’ve used DragonDrop for years. Glad to know there is an alternative if the functionality breaks in future OS updates….
I’ve been using it very happily for about 6 months now.
I’d like to add to this review that it sometimes allows you to copy and paste stuff you couldn’t otherwise. It does some conversion tricks.
It’s really, really good.
Also the design, in terms of functionality and use of space, is great.
I only wish the background was slightly more transparent and the corners more rounded. Heck! That’s all!
I don’t see too big of an advantage to the method of Cmd+Tab switching to the desired (app-)window after starting the drag to select the correct location to drop the file.
BUT I SEE A BIG CHANCE FOR IMPROVEMENT…
Would be great if they’ll allow text, (web-)objects and screen capture selection in addition to files and make it an option to launch it with the standard keyboard shortcuts Cmd+C (for text and files), Shift+Ctrl+Cmd+4 (for screencaptures) and as a “finder service” via right-click context-menu (for objects).
This then would add the selection (files, text, objects or screen capture) to their board and – in addition to their drag and drop feature – allow to past all (Cmd+V) or one by one (Shift+Cmd+V) into the desired location.
Not being a software developer at all, I can imagine that some of these functions wouldn’t work system wide because of app privileges but if Apple would come up with such a feature as part of OSX, I’m sure all app devs would incorporate into their codes (if necessary).
Hi, David. Thank you for your feedback on Yoink.
Yoink already accepts text snippets, images from websites and almost any other content from any Cocoa app. A contextual menu in Finder is also available.
And at http://eternalstorms.at/yoink/tips, I’ve got some workflows available that let you automatically add screenshots to Yoink ;)
I hope this helps!
All the best,
Matt (the developer of Yoink)
wow impressive, thank you!
I have been using yoink for quite a while and on my 27″ iMac it turns out that its much more efficient to configure yoink to be available at mouse pointer position instead of dragging the object “all the way across towards the screen border ;-)
just my 2cts