After creating a rectangular, elliptic or free selection, or when you are using the Magic wand, you can click-and-drag to move the selection and its contents, while the initial position remains empty.
If you only want to move the selection border and not its contents, then press the Alt key and click-and-drag the selection.
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Sometimes the Alt key is used by the window manager and you move the image window instead of the selection. If this is the case, you have two possibilities:
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To move a selection and its contents, keep the Alt+Ctrl keys pressed when starting to click-and-drag on the image. For moving a selection without emptying its initial position, press Alt+Shift instead.
Moving a selection automatically creates a floating layer (floating selection). See Floating selection . The mouse pointer then looks like an anchor when it is outside of the selection. This means that the selection will be permanently anchored at the place you choose when you click the mouse button.
As soon as this floating selection is created in the Layer dialog (and you can create it with Selection/Float), you can use the keyboard arrow keys to move the selection horizontally or vertically.