How do I moves files to an external hard drive to free up space on my MacBookPro

My MacBook Pro is running out of memory space. I want to move some files to my external hard drive, but when I highlight the file and try to move it, it doesn't go into the new file I have created on my external drive. I did it when I first bought my external drive, but that was over a year ago, and now I guess I have forgotten how I did it. Help!

Highlight your external drive with left mouse button click, select get Info of Finder File menu, then tick off "Ignore owenership on this volume" could solve the problem.

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