The floating file tray

The floating file tray exists for the drag you have not finished planning: gather files from three folders, then drop the whole pile in one move. It follows your pointer instead of living at the top of the screen, so it works the same on every display.

It is one of the places the file tray can appear: Floating on its own, or Both, which is the default. Its options are in the Floating file tray section of Settings, File tray.

How to reveal it

• Shake while dragging. Shake sensitivity runs from low to very high.
• Instant appear brings it in the moment a drag starts, with no shake at all. Its delay sets how long a drag runs before it appears.
• A drag shortcut reveals it on a key you hold while dragging. Setting one turns shake and instant appear off, because the key is now the deliberate signal. Record it on the Shortcuts page.

Auto-hide

With Auto-hide on, the floating file tray puts itself away once the pointer leaves it, after a delay you choose. Together with the appear delay, that lets it be eager or patient depending on how you work.

One or multiple floating trays

By default there is only ever one floating file tray. Turn on Multiple floating trays and shaking while one is already open brings another, so you can sort a pile into several destinations in a single pass.

The Tray Switcher shows every open floating file tray at once and moves between them. Give it a shortcut on the Shortcuts page.

Floating file trays carry the same Quick Action tiles as the notch, so a gathered pile can go to AirDrop, a cloud link or Mail without being dropped anywhere first. With Both, Sync between trays keeps the floating file tray and the notch's tray holding the same files.