On OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), I don't seem to be able to us the "Cut" command on a file in the Finder, like you can do in Windows Explorer on Microsoft Windows. (In Windows, once you select a file and "cut" it, you can then move to a different directory and "paste" the file to that location.)
The only way I can move a file using keyboard or contextual menu commands is to copy the file to another drive or location and then delete the old version of the file.
In the Finder's 'Edit' menu, 'Cut' is in the list but if a file itself is selected, it is always greyed out. 'Copy' is not. Why is this?
Best Answer
Keyboard method: Cmd-C then Opt-Cmd-V does the cut&paste for files on Mac.
Mouse method: Drag the file from one folder to the parent of the target folder (ie, if moving to Documents:Financial, drag to Documents). Hover on the parent folder for a few seconds, and it will spring open. Then you can continue dragging the file to the target folder. (note, the mouse method may result in very long hover times, if you're dragging a huge number of files, eg 1,000 files)
Menu method: It's not part of the Apple menu system to 'cut' files. The menu Cut option is grayed out, and becomes enabled when text is selected. But not files. Here is an in-depth discussion on Apple's discussion forum.