How can I copy filenames in Numbers without images?

Copy-pasting through TextEdit is reliable but this Shortcut may save time if you have to do this often.

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/10d4c6d9a1984367ba8f8854f434375a

Install: click on link with Safari, inspect, and click to install.

Usage thereafter: in Finder select the relevant files, right-click or control-click and under Quick Actions in the contextual menu choose 'Get Filenames as Pastable List'. The shortcut places the names on the clipboard for pasting into Numbers (or wherever).

If you find it doesn't do what you want simply open the Shortcuts app, find this shortcut, right-click it and choose Delete... Or select it and choose Edit > Delete from the menu.

SG

I think this is a case of Numbers being too smart for it's own good (or, at least, for yours)...

When you select a group of files in the Finder and copy them, the Finder copies the data in a number of formats - as a list of file references (including paths), as a list of file names (plain text), and possibly even as the file contents.

When you paste that data, it's up to the destination application to determine what data to paste. Generally, applications choose the 'richest' format (the one with the most data) that they support. In this case, Numbers seems to paste any image data that it can identify, thinking that's 'more useful' than the list of names.

Think of it the other way around - some people would want the image data, and that's Numbers' assumption.

Unfortunately, that's not what you're looking for, and there's no way to tell the application to 'dumb down' the paste to the lowest common denominator (in this case, just file names).

The solution is to go through some intermediary app that doesn't understand the image data - which is why pasting into TextExit works because TextEdit can't process the image data, and the list of file names is all it can wean from the clipboard. When you re-copy that data, you just get the file names because that's all TextEdit knows.

As SGIII mentioned, there may be ways to automate this, but it's just replacing one step with one other step, so the benefits may not be worthwhile.

I think you've already found the easiest way: just copy-paste into TextEdit, and then copy-paste from TextEdit to the final destination. Takes a second or two.

There are other ways using Shortcuts or shell scripts, but they won't save much work.

SG