Selecting & moving

A page is a tree: cards hold text and photos, groups hold shapes. Selection walks that tree, and the same handful of gestures does it on every device — with a keyboard and a pointer where you have them.

One tap, then another

The first tap selects the element on the page under your finger — the whole card or group. That is on purpose: most of the time you want to move the card, not the label on it.
Tap again on something inside and the selection goes straight to it, however deep it sits. On the Mac, and on an iPad with a pointer, a dashed outline under the pointer shows what the next click selects.
Double-tap climbs to the parent of what is under your finger, a triple tap to its grandparent.
Double-tap a text to edit it at once, wherever the selection was; a drawing to draw in it, a chart to open its data. A selected text also edits on the next tap — or with Return on the Mac — and an empty Magic AI container offers Sketch on its left half and Describe on its right.
Tap empty space to deselect — or Esc on the Mac, the ✕ button on iPhone. While you are editing a text, Esc ends the editing first.

One click selected the hero; the next reached the headline inside it — the small toolbar floats above it.

Selecting several

Dragging a box straight away needs a pointer — a mouse or a trackpad, on the Mac or on an iPad. With a finger, a drag pans the page, so you long-press first and then drag. The box catches the elements on the page it touches; touching is enough.

Mac	Click and drag on empty space to draw the box. ⌘-click adds or removes one element at a time. ⌘A selects everything in view — or, with an element of a group selected, all of its siblings.
iPad	Long-press empty space, then drag. With a keyboard, ⌘-tap and ⌘A work like on the Mac; with a trackpad, so does click-and-drag.
iPhone	Long-press empty space, then drag. The bottom bar counts what is selected; tap it to let go of them all.

Moving

Drag a selected element to move it. On the Mac — and on an iPad with a trackpad — you can skip the selecting: drag anything, and the element on the page under the pointer moves.
Arrow keys nudge by 1 pt, ⇧ arrows by 10 pt. The alignment guides light up while you nudge.
Everything snaps to the edges, centres, equal spacing and sizes of what is around it; elements placed straight on the page also snap to its edges and centre. Hold ⌘ to move without snapping; turn off Settings › Snapping & guides to never snap. Rotated elements don't snap.
Hold ⇧ while dragging to keep the move on 45° steps — straight across, straight up or diagonal.
Hold ⌥ as you start dragging and a copy stays where you started.
Measure: with one element selected, hold ⌥ and point at another — the distances between them appear. That needs a pointer: the Mac, or an iPad with a trackpad or mouse.

Resizing and rotating

Edges and corners. Drag an edge handle to resize on one axis, a corner to resize both. A text has only its two side handles: its height follows the text.
Proportions. Corners keep the proportions when Aspect Ratio is on in the inspector — or while you hold ⌘.
From the centre. Hold ⌥ to resize around the centre instead of the opposite edge.
Rotate. Drag the knob under the selection — it clicks into 30°, 45° and 90° on its way round — or hold ⇧ and drag a corner. The exact angle is in Position, in the inspector.
Fit in Container, under Arrange in the menu, makes an element fill its parent exactly.

Into and out of containers

Groups — and the cards built from them — freeforms and Magic AI containers hold other elements, and what is inside moves with them. You put things in and take them out by holding still.

In: drag an element over a container and hold still for a moment. Its outline draws itself closed, and when you let go the element is inside.
Out: drag something out of its parent, hold still, and on release it lands on the page itself.
Keep moving while it charges and nothing happens — the pause is the signal, so you can pass over containers freely. Changed your mind? Stay still for another second after the outline closes and it lets go.
From Elements, on the Mac and iPad, a preview of the part follows the drag; hold still over a container to drop it inside, and Esc cancels the drag. On iPhone, a part dropped on the selected container lands inside it.

Holding still mid-drag on the Mac: the target's outline knits itself closed, and on release the element goes inside it.

More actions: the menu

Every selection has a menu with everything you can do to it. Right-click on the Mac and on an iPad with a trackpad; on touch, long-press and keep holding until it opens. The ⋯ in the small toolbar opens it too.

Cut, Copy, Paste and Delete — and Copy Style / Paste Style, which carry the look of one element to another.
Group and Ungroup — Unframe on a device frame.
Arrange: to the front or the back, Stack and Unstack, Fit in Container — and with several selected, Align and Tidy Up.
Edit: flip and rotate for photos, convert to freeform or path, point editing, rasterize, and the AI actions — Remove Background, Convert to Vector, Extract Text, and Correct, Rephrase, Elaborate or Summarize a text. With several selected, it merges paths, drawings or texts into one.
Save Component keeps the selection for later, and Export exports it alone. On iPhone, Position opens the pins.
On empty space the menu is short: Paste, when you have copied something, and Select all.

Lock, hide, and the small toolbar

⌘L — or the padlock in the small toolbar or at the top of Layers — locks an element: it stays selectable, but it will not move or resize until you unlock it.
The circle at the top of Layers switches the selected element's opacity off and on, so you can hide something without deleting it.
A small toolbar floats by the selection with the everyday actions, depending on what is selected: edit, text format, lock, duplicate, delete, add and remove points, and ⋯ for the full menu. Duplicate and Lock live here and on the keyboard (⌘D, ⌘L), not in the selection menu. Toolbar — under Grid in Design with nothing selected, on the page-settings page on iPhone — sets it to Off, Auto or Always.