Back in January, I , a utility that gives you a virtual shelf for temporarily storing content. () is a new utility that offers similar functionality, albeit in a package that’s simpler but less intrusive.

With DragonDrop running, you simply drag an item—a file, a folder, text from a document, a photo from a webpage—onto the DragonDrop icon in the menu bar. A small shelf appears, floating above all other windows and displaying the item’s icon; the shelf follows you across workspaces and full-screen apps. Once you navigate to the destination, you just drag the item off the shelf to move it to the destination; the shelf disappears.

Alternatively, DragonDrop offers an option to automatically bring up its shelf whenever you shake the pointer while dragging content. In other words, once you start dragging an item, just jiggle the mouse—the DragonDrop shelf appears directly under the pointer, letting you quickly store the item. The shelf remains in that location until you remove the item. (You can also manually reposition the shelf.) If you prefer this approach, you can disable the DragonDrop menu to free up some menu-bar space.

In addition to letting you move files and folders in the Finder, DragonDrop also lets you move, say, text from one document to another, or even an image from one browser tab to another. You can also drop multiple items onto the shelf, although they must be part of a single drag-and-drop action—each time you drag an item to the shelf, the shelf’s previous contents are cleared.

As with all drag-and-drop operations in the Finder, dragging an item from the shelf to a different drive copies it; holding down the Option key when dragging forces a copy, leaving the original in place; and holding down the Option and Command keys creates an alias to the original file, leaving the original in place.