A related request:
Allow to create a new file from a selection on canvas or Layers
http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/49196579

Thanks a lot @Egor a great solution for now. Hopefully a native feature one day soon.

1. Create an action
2. Select some art
3. Create a new Layer with a button in the Layers panel
4. Object > Arrange > Send to Current Layer
5. End recording
'Works like a charm'

@Egor It feels like the most basic of features for which no Action should be needed. But we can agree to differ on that point.

I've tried to create an Action like this but have not found a way to collect the selection on the artboard into a new layer. Would you care to explain how you achieved this? And not via the Layers panel?

@Jan, because we users find many ways to use Ai which developers knew and know nothing about. They code, we use. There is an ever-growing number of techniques, tricks and workflows we create, each one suiting different situation. While one in particular can seem obvious for some, it is not for others. Remember — we had to wait for an eternity for, say, panning with a mouse wheel, or History, or a vertical alignment for area text... Obvious? For sure! But there is that many hands to develop Ai, and choices have to be made about what to develop or fix next... :(

That’s what UserVoice is for — to weight requests and bugs.

And I personally assume that this request, which has a sane workaround with an action, will and should be postponed in favour of other stuff. You don’t have to go to Layers at all once an action is set. This is what Actions are for.

Vote still :)

@Egor Chistyakov yes you can do this with an action but why isn't this part of the default functionality?

When working you want to be able to select and collect from the canvas because that's where your focus is. Otherwise you have to move your mouse to the Layers panel to select items. It gets me out of the flow. It's weird for me that this only works in the layers panel.

@Egor Chistyakov ‘Collect in New Layer’ works on the selected artwork in the Layers Panel (highlighted background in the Layers Panel). It would be more beneficial if there was a command that works on the selected artwork on the canvas (highlighted dot in the Layers Panel). After all, on the canvas is where I most easily see and select which elements I want to move.

How about a cmd-click to create new layer with selection and move to new layer and cmd-shift-click new layer to copy selection to new layer?

Well, this one I can protest about.
Just make an action that does this: create a layer, move the selected art into it with a dedicated command, turn the layer into a template, assign to a F-key. Just checked, it works (don’t forget to toggle dialogues off). The only downside — this new layer would always have a name you set initially. But if you want to set one — just enable the dialogue for the third step again.

As of right now, we're forced to create a new layer first and turn that layer into a template. It'd be much easier if we could simply turn an existing object within a layer into a template.

Ken, what's wrong with 'Collect in New Layer command' (except it creates a sublayer)? If it would create a top-level layer instead — would it work for you?

It baffles me, that this is still not implemented. I would have expected this to be default behaviour, when creating a new layer and having multiple paths or objects marked

I support this idea as well.

Hello here. This is 2019 and I love how this idea came up 3 years ago. I would like to support this idea more if it is possible. I was trying to create tree ideas of a logo on a three art boards which I like to do as it helps me in exporting them as individual pieces. Then I thought what if I could have the assets of the first Artboard's layer copied on the second Artboard's layer? but wait is that even possible in Illustrator? Then I found out that the Adobe team did a good job incorporating an Artboard panel that allows to see artboard lists and selecting to switch from one to another easily. But what about the assets that are on the Artboards, can we see them in that same panel? Well I am not sure. So, why not have that option to copy or move assets from one artboard layer to another but specifically on layer that is parented on the specific artboard? I apologies for any grammar mistakes. Thanks

On the Layers panel, it would be great to:
* Right-click on a selected set of elements inside a layer and choose to create a new layer with them or move them to a particular layer (via menu)
* Make it easier and more intuitive to select the corresponding elements in the Layers panel instead of just highlighting them on the far-right column of the Layers panel. I would like to drag and select elements on the Artboard and be able to select those elements on the Layers panel so that I can easily move them around.

Is the need here:
1. to move all selected items to a new layer?
2. to move all items on an artboard to a new layer?