selection by shift-drag is inverting the selection, not adding to it

[madobe1127]

I'm using Illustrator 29.0, and this has got to be something simple I'm misunderstanding, but my issue is this:

Let's say I want to select a bunch of objects distributed over my screen -- but not all objects on the screen. I want to use a drag with the selection tool to assist in grabbing many objects, but a single drag with the selection tool can't get them all without bringing in unwanted objects. So I'd like to do something like 3 different drags and add to the selected objects each time.

I thought I used to do this with a shift-drag. But now that's "inverting" the selection, meaning that any object within the marquee is either added to the selection if it's not already selected, or being removed from the selection if it's already selected. So I can't manage to select all my objects without shift-clicking on each one and there are too many to do this quickly.

I tried to upload the file, but I'm getting an error that the content doesn't match the extension. ??? I saved as Illustratior 2020 format, and the extension is .ai

[madobe1127 · Accepted solution]

Okay, I finally figured out the right Google Search query to find information on this, and I see this is by design. Ugh. I guess maybe I can group objects in some way to assist selecting a lot of them.