As the metal transfer in the GMAW process affects the weld quality and productivity, the mechanism of molten formation and detachment has been investigated at various welding conditions. The force balance and pinch instability models have been widely used to analyze the metal transfer in the globular and spray modes, respectively A new approach is proposed in this work by minimizing the energy of molten drop system. Effects of the surface tension, gravity, electromagnetic and drag forces are considered with no presumed molten drop geometry. Effects of various welding conditions on the metal transfer are explained. The results show that the proposed mode can be applied to the globular and spray transfer modes. When compared with other models, results of the proposed model show better agreements with the available experimental data, which demonstrates the validity of the present model.