In-app drag and drop on iPad. In-app drag and drop is the most basic version of drag and drop. It even works in some iPhone apps. In-app drag and drop depends almost entirely on what the app-maker. May 13, 2020 Is The Problem App-Specific? Is drag-and-drop not working on Mac between some apps but works fine with others? If only certain applications don’t work correctly with this common mouse function, you should look for answers that relate to the specific software in question. If it happens everywhere, well a system level issue seems likely. Next generation cross-platform app development with drag and drop app builder for iOS, macOS and Android. Creo combines the traditional Design and Development process into a single easy-to-use application for unprecedented productivity.
Good old “drag and drop”. It’s a mainstay of graphical interfaces and a super-intuitive way of moving stuff from one virtual spot to another. Being such an early pioneer of the graphical interface, you’d expect Apple’s macOS to have completely nailed this particular function.
However, for more than a decade, certain unlucky macOS users have been faced with a bizarre situation where drag and drop suddenly stops working on Mac. If you suddenly find that you can’t drag and drop on your Mac, here are some things you can try.
Are You Running The Latest macOS?
Stop! Before we go any further, consider that many drag and drop Mac issues have been fixed in newer versions of macOS. We haven’t included any of the fixes that are specific to versions such as High Sierra here, so (if you haven’t already) consider upgrading to the latest version of macOS your computer supports. At the time of writing that’s macOS Catalina and it’s well worth moving over for most people.
Did The Problem Happen After Something Changed?
Did your drag-and-drop woes begin right after something else happened? Perhaps a system update, new hardware or a new application? While it might just be a coincidence, one option is to use a Time Machine snapshot to roll back your Mac to before that change was made.
Failing that, you could try to reverse the change manually, by undoing the last change that was made before the problem started. Of course, that change and your drag-and-drop issues might just have happened together by coincidence, but it’s a likely place to start.
Is The Problem Mouse-Specific?
It’s always worth eliminating suspects in any computer diagnostic process and the first question to answer is whether the mouse or computer is at fault. For example, if you’re using a MacBook, connect an external mouse and see if the issue persists.That could be a clue as to where you should focus your efforts to fix.
A Culprit Mouse: Battery, Maintenance & Bluetooth
Can You Drag And Drop Applications From One Mac To Another
If it’s a specific mouse that won’t play ball, what can you do? If you’re using a wireless mouse, try switching Bluetooth on and off, unpairing and pairing, or removing and reinserting the mouse’s USB dongle. Whichever applies to your model.
Check the buttons for dirt or grime and make sure that the USB plug or cable aren’t damaged. Some mice, like the first-generation Apple Magic Mouse, are notorious for constantly disconnecting while you work. This can interrupt mouse tasks such as dragging and dropping something.
Is The Problem App-Specific?
Is drag-and-drop not working on Mac between some apps but works fine with others? If only certain applications don’t work correctly with this common mouse function, you should look for answers that relate to the specific software in question.
If it happens everywhere, well a system level issue seems likely. Assuming that you’ve eliminated the mouse hardware itself as the culprit.
Restart The Finder App
The Finder application is the beating heart of your Mac’s file management system. If it goes belly up, you’ll lose the ability to drag files from one place to another. The good news is that restarting Finder is fast and easy:
- Press command + option + escape.
- In the Force Quit Applications list, look for Finder.
- Click the Relaunch button.
Now just wait a second and Finder should restart. If you’re lucky the drag and drop issue will have resolved.
Restart Your Mac
If restarting the Finder isn’t enough, then restart your Mac completely. For some people, simply putting the Mac to sleep and waking it back up works. However, modern machines reboot so quickly, this might just be a waste of time.
So do a hard reboot, but be sure to save any work you’ve got open. Just to be safe.
Check Your Trackpad Settings
In some cases, it turns out that the magic trackpad on MacBooks may simply go out of whack for no obvious reason. We’ve heard people complain about this after updates.
Regardless, if your trackpad in particular seems to cause drag and drop not to work on your Mac, check its sensitivity and other settings, taking them back to default or more sensible levels if something seems out of whack.
Just hold command+space to launch Spotlight Search. Type trackpad and hit enter.
Reset Your Preferences
If none of these fixes work, then we’re afraid you’ll have to resort to a mildly technical solution. macOS uses “plist” files to store your preferences for various aspects of the Mac. We’re going to delete those files, forcing macOS to rebuild and reset them to default. Specifically, we’ll delete the plist files related to the mouse and trackpad.
Before you do that, we strongly recommend you make a Time Machine backup of your Mac. This ensures that you can always undo things if something goes wrong.
Note: This doesn’t seem to be a relevant solution for macOS Catalina anymore, since we were unable to locate the relevant preference files in the user-accessible portion of the system drive.
First, start up Finder and then navigate to Library > Preferences. Once there, delete these .plist files:
- com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse.plist
- com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad.plist
- com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse.plist
- com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad.plist
- com.apple.preference.trackpad.plist
With these files deleted, restart your Mac and check whether drag and drop now works as intended. macOS should have rebuilt these files with their default values intact. Hopefully fixing your drag-and-drop problems at the same time.
What A Drag!
Big computer problems can be less stressful than small ones. Despite what you may think, at least, when something serious goes wrong, you can reinstall everything or simply replace or repair broken hardware. When a problem like this crops up, it can eat hours of your life and defy explanation.
Hopefully these concrete steps have sorted out your problematic mouse malady and have you dragging and dropping stuff all over the place again.
Drag and Drop
Drag and drop lets people select source content, such as text, a file, or an image, and drag it from one location (source container) to another (destination container), resulting in either the movement or duplication of the content. Most macOS apps implement some level of drag and drop functionality, based on user needs and app-specific features. For instance:
- A read-only text field might allow its content to be dragged to other locations but not accept dropped content.
- A document list might permit dragging to reorder documents but not dropping new documents.
- A text editor might permit dragging text around as well as accepting dropped text from another app.
Your app can enable drag and drop within a single container, such as a text view; between containers, such as two text fields or windows; and even to other apps, such as Mail and the Finder.
For developer guidance, see Drag and Drop Programming Topics.
Supporting Drag and Drop
In general, implement drag-and-drop support in your app. Drag and drop is an efficient, intuitive way to move and copy content throughout the system. Unless it truly isn’t useful in your app, such as in an immersive game, strive to support drag and drop anywhere it can add value. If your app involves working with text, images, or files, it can benefit from drag-and-drop features.
Offer alternate ways to accomplish drag-and-drop tasks. Drag-and-drop operations may be difficult for some people to perform, such as when using assistive technologies. Finder and Mail are examples of apps that offer alternatives to drag and drop—they include menu items that can be used to copy and move items between destinations.
Determine whether a drag-and-drop operation should result in a move or a copy. In general, a move usually makes sense when the source and destination containers are the same, such as the same app, document (even when dragging between two windows that display the same document), or disk. A copy usually makes sense when the source and destination containers are different, such as two different apps, documents, or disks. If you drag a Mail message to the Finder desktop, for example, the message is copied to the desktop as a file. If you drag a Mail message to a mailbox, the message is moved from its current location to the new mailbox.
When possible, make drag-and-drop operations reversible. Occasionally, a user might inadvertently drag content to the wrong destination. When this happens, the user should ideally be able to use undo to restore the content to its previous location.
Responding to Dragging
When possible, let people select and drag content in a single step. In Finder, for example, you can click a file and immediately begin dragging it to a new destination. You don’t need to make a distinct selection, pause, and then start dragging unless you want to drag multiple files.
Let people drag selected content in inactive windows. Selected content in an inactive window is known as a background selection and has a different appearance from selected content in the active window. In general, people expect to be able to drag a background selection—especially when it’s a range of content like text, images, or files—to the active window. In TextEdit, for example, you can drag selected text from an inactive document to the active document without bringing the inactive document to the front. To support such an action, you must maintain the user’s selection when a window becomes inactive.
When possible, let people click and drag individual items in inactive windows without impacting the background selection. For example, while using an app, you can click an individual file in a background Finder window and drag it to a new location without deselecting any previously selected files.
Providing Feedback During a Drag
Display a drag image beneath the pointer as soon as content is dragged a distance of at least three points. A drag image should be a translucent representation of the content being dragged. This appearance provides context, indicates that a drag is in process, and enables the user to see destinations beneath the dragged content. The drag image should be displayed until the user drops the content.
Expanded drag image
Display a multi-item drag image when multiple items are dragged. If the use selects and drags multiple items, the drag image should be composed of stacked images representing the individual items. For related guidance, see Multi-Item Drag Images.
Display an item count badge during multi-item drags. A badge appears below the pointer as a small red oval containing a white number indicating the number of items being dragged.Update the badge count when appropriate. If a destination can accept only a subset of dragged items, change the badge count to indicate how many items will be accepted.
If it adds clarity, change the drag image when content is dragged over a destination. When dragging a photo into a TextEdit document, for example, the photo expands to show how it will look if the user drops it in the document. This behavior lets the user preview the result of a drag and drop operation before committing to it. Although changing the drag image can provide valuable feedback, avoid creating a distracting experience in which drag images are constantly and radically changing form.
Copy pointer
Display a pointer that indicates what happens when content is dropped. For example, when dragging a new icon into a toolbar, the copy pointer is displayed. Other pointers that provide useful destination feedback include drag link, disappearing item, and operation not allowed. See Pointers.
Clearly indicate when dropping isn’t possible. During a drag, users should know when they can and can’t drop content. Some apps communicate this by displaying an insertion point, highlighting, or acceptance pointer badge only when dropping is possible—in other words, the lack of visual feedback indicates when dropping isn’t possible. Other apps display an explicit not allowed badge, such as a circle with a slash.
Highlight a new destination when content is dragged above it. When there are multiple destinations, highlight one at a time. When the source and destination containers are the same, highlighting is unnecessary. For example, in Finder, moving a document icon to a different location in the same folder window doesn’t highlight the folder window because doing so would cause confusion. In some cases, highlighting may occur if content is dragged completely out of a container and then reenters it. Highlighting should be removed when content is no longer positioned above a destination.
Horizontal insertion indicator
In text, use a vertical insertion indicator to show where the dragged content will appear when dropped. An insertion indicator is separate from the pointer, which indicates to users whether a drag is valid and whether it is interpreted as a move or copy.
Mac Drag And Drop From Touchpad
In a table, use a horizontal insertion indicator and highlighting to show where content will reside when dropped. The sidebar of a Finder window, for example, shows a horizontal insertion indicator when content is dragged between existing sidebar items. Folders and disks in the sidebar also become highlighted when content is dragged over them, indicating that dropped content will be moved or copied into them.
Automatically scroll a destination when appropriate. When content is dragged outside the bounds of a destination, your app must determine whether to scroll the contents of the destination or let the user continue dragging to an entirely different destination. If your app lets the user continue dragging, consider defining a region that causes automatic scrolling when the dragged item is positioned above it. For example, a Finder window automatically scrolls when content is dragged to the top or bottom of the window’s body area. Automatic scrolling should only occur in active windows. If the user attempts to initiate automatic scrolling in an inactive window, bring the window to the front.
Accepting Dropped Data
Check for the Option key at drop time. Users can force a drag-and-drop operation within the same container to behave like a copy by pressing the Option key while dragging. This behavior gives users the flexibility of making the move-or-copy decision while in the process of dragging. If the user stops pressing Option before dropping content in the same container, then a move occurs instead of a copy. In general, dragging between two different containers should always produce a copy.
Use the expected animation when dropping is unsuccessful. When the user drops an item on an invalid destination, or when dropping fails, the item should zoom from the pointer location back to its original location. This behavior is known as a zoomback.
Ask for confirmation before completing a drag-and-drop operation that can’t be reversed. For example, Finder asks for confirmation when a user drags a file into a write-only folder because the user doesn’t have privileges to open the folder and remove the dropped item.
Provide additional feedback when dropped content initiates a process. If the user drops an item onto an icon representing a task, such as printing, show that the task has begun and keep the user informed of the task’s progress.
Extract the relevant portion from a dropped item. For example, when users drag a person from the Contacts app to the To recipient field in a Mail message, only the name and email address are accepted, not the rest of the contact’s address information.
Update the selection accordingly after content is dropped. When selected content is dragged to a new location in the same container, it should remain selected in its new location. When selected content is dragged to another container, it should become selected in the new location and any previous selection should be deselected.
Apply appropriate styling to dropped text. If the destination supports the same styled text attributes, the dropped text should maintain its original font, typeface, and size attributes. Otherwise, the dropped text should assume the font, typeface, and size attributes of the destination.
Sharing Dragged Data
Consider letting people drag content from your app into the Finder. Ideally, output this content in a format that can be dragged back to or opened by your app. Calendar, for example, lets users drag events to the Finder as .ics files, which can be opened in Calendar or shared with others.
Drag And Drop Apple Mac
TIP Some apps output dragged content in a clipping, which is a temporary container for storing dragged content. After it's generated, a clipping can be dragged to a new destination. Most system apps let users drag text to the Finder as a clipping, and at a later time, drag the clipping into a text field or other location. Note that clippings have no relation to the Clipboard—generating a drag-and-drop clipping does not affect the Clipboard.
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