If you’ve ever tried to select a large batch of files in Canva, up until now the fastest option was dragging to select — and while that helped, it had real limitations. You could only grab one continuous batch at a time, and starting a new drag would deselect everything you’d already chosen. Two keyboard shortcuts that have recently rolled out to all users give you faster, more precise options for bulk selecting.
The first lets you select a range of items by clicking the first and last file in a group. The second selects everything currently visible on the page at once. Both work in grid and list view, inside folders, in Uploads, and at the top level of your Projects — so wherever you tend to do your organizing work, they apply.
How to Select a Range of Items in Canva
To select a range, click the first item in the group you want to select, then hold Shift and click the last item. Everything between them gets selected at once.
You can also select multiple separate ranges in one go. Shift-click to select your first range, then Shift-click the start of your next range and Shift-click the end of it to add that group to your selection. So if you had ten files and wanted files two through four and then seven through nine, you’d Shift-click to select the first range, then Shift-click to add the second without losing what you already had selected.
To deselect everything, click anywhere off the files. To deselect a single file from your selection, click its checkbox individually.
This is particularly useful when you’re working with a large upload batch — a full brand photo shoot, for example, or a set of graphics from a recent campaign. Rather than dragging to select across a grid and losing your selection the moment you need a second batch, you click the first image, Shift-click the last, and the whole range is selected and ready to move.
How to Select All Visible Items in Canva
To select everything currently visible on the page, click any single item first so Canva knows you’re working with files, then press Cmd+A on a Mac or Ctrl+A on Windows. Everything currently displayed gets selected at once.
To deselect everything, click anywhere off the files. To deselect a single file from your selection, click its checkbox individually.
One thing to know: Canva loads items in batches rather than showing everything at once. Select all only captures what’s currently visible on screen — so if you have a large folder with more files than are currently displayed, scroll down until you can see the items you want to include, then use Cmd+A or Ctrl+A to select them.
When You’ll Actually Use These
Bulk organizing a folder
If you have a folder that’s gotten cluttered with a mix of current and outdated files, range select makes it faster to grab chunks of older designs and move them to an archive folder — and if there are multiple groups to move, you can select several ranges before moving them all at once.
Moving a photo shoot or asset batch
When you’ve uploaded a large set of related images — a brand photo shoot, a product shoot, a batch of graphics from a launch — Shift-click range select lets you grab the whole set and move it to the right folder without losing your selection mid-way through.
Clearing the deck to start fresh
If your All Projects view has become too overwhelming to organize file by file, select all gives you a way to move everything currently visible in large batches into a holding folder (e.g., something like “To Organize Later”) so you can start building a cleaner structure without files scattered everywhere.
That’s not my first recommendation for getting organized, because it moves the problem rather than solves it, but if you need to clear the view quickly before you start sorting things properly, it’s a legitimate option.
How These Work Together
For bigger organizing projects, range select and select all are most useful in combination. Scroll until you can see the files you want, use Cmd+A or Ctrl+A to grab everything visible, move that batch, scroll to display the next set, and repeat. For files that need more precision (i.e., specific groups rather than everything on the page), range select gives you that control within the same workflow.
If you’re in the middle of a bigger Canva cleanup and want a clearer process for tackling it, the free Canva Organization Roadmap walks you through the bigger-picture steps before you start moving files around.
