kkaland

Q: Cannot drag and drop files in Finder on Yosemite 10.10

This is basically exactly as it sounds. I just discovered that I can't drag and drop files in the Finder anymore for some reason. I've restarted 3 or 4 times since upgrading, and I've reset the SMC and PRAM already. Because of this, I can't update an application I'd like to. Copying the application does not work either; the paste option is greyed out  It's not just applications; click-and-drag and three-finger drag simply don't drag the file. It is not happening invisibly either; going through the motions and dropping the file on Applications yields no result.

 

I searched the Web for this but didn't find anything similar for Yosemite. If anyone has a suggestion or the same problem, I would love to hear it.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10), Late 2013 15-inch 2.7 GHz 512 GB

Posted on Oct 25, 2014 7:53 AM

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Q: Cannot drag and drop files in Finder on Yosemite 10.10

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  • by blakesson,

    blakesson blakesson Sep 12, 2015 6:05 AM in response to kkaland
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 12, 2015 6:05 AM in response to kkaland

    I also had this problem, but finally have solved it. None of the solutions given here was really working for me. The problem in most cases started with iTunes, that wouldn't allow me to drag and drop songs anymore after a short time after log in into OS X, and after that I progressively lost drag and drop functionally in other apps, including Finder. Oftentimes after 20 or 30 minutes I had no drag and drop functionality whatsoever left (until the next restart of OS X).

     

    The cause of the problem in my case turned out to be SIMBL. I had installed that to use Afloat. After:

    1. removing components of Afloat (search Macintosh HD for "afloat")
    2. removing SIMBL (search Macintosh HD for "SIMBL" and removing everything I found)
    3. restarting my Mac

    the problem completely vanished!

  • by hollywoodfarmer,

    hollywoodfarmer hollywoodfarmer Jan 10, 2016 3:40 PM in response to kkaland
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 10, 2016 3:40 PM in response to kkaland

    I just opened my new Macbook Pro with Yosemite. Was alarmed by the impossibility of click and drag in the finder (when trying to move an app to the dock it would just open an info window, and when trying to move a vid to a folder it just opened the vid in a preview window), and disgusted to find that people have had to go to dig and devise workarounds to figure out how to restore this functionality (if it were just a setting, OK, but my desktop folder was never locked). I don't know if these factoids will give any clues to the tech-smarter people on here, but:

    - The first thing I did in my panic was to plug in my venerable WACOM CTE-640 to see if I could still get click and drag and functionality with the stylus. Yes, thank goodness. Just as before.

    - Then tried some cut and paste stuff in TextEdit. Found that if I double-clicked a word and tried to click and drag it, say insert it into the middle of another word, it worked (also works in this [hypertext?] window I'm writing in now. But try to drag-and-select a word in TextEdit and it tries to open Look Up. Try to drag-and-select a word in THIS WINDOW, however, and it works...??

    - Copy and paste seems to work just fine in TextEdit (using pull down commands and keyboard shortcuts), despite the click and drag in finder troubles.

    Go to work, guys.

  • by Terence Devlin,

    Terence Devlin Terence Devlin Jan 10, 2016 3:43 PM in response to hollywoodfarmer
    Level 10 (139,597 points)
    iLife
    Jan 10, 2016 3:43 PM in response to hollywoodfarmer

    Not sure the guys have as much work to do as you, as it's quite obvious from your description that the issue is with your trackpad or mouse settings. When you click you're getting right-clicks.

  • by JorgeZapater,

    JorgeZapater JorgeZapater Jan 20, 2016 2:56 PM in response to jay42k
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 20, 2016 2:56 PM in response to jay42k

    Thanks jay42k!

     

    If the problem reoccurs after restarting, the following worked for me...

     

    I checked to see if the same problem happens when logged in as a different user. Finder seemed to be working smoothly for other users. If this is the case, paste the following line into the terminal to remove the plist file for the problematic user, hit enter, and restart.

     

    rm /Users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

     

    I did this without logging out of the problematic user and all is well.

  • by Loren Ryter,

    Loren Ryter Loren Ryter Jan 21, 2016 5:26 AM in response to JorgeZapater
    Level 3 (507 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 21, 2016 5:26 AM in response to JorgeZapater

    Please note that the terminal command Jorge gave will delete your Finder preferences file, in case that's not clear enough. Also, note that restarting logs off all users. FWIW I've not seen this problem in some time.

  • by rgr8house,

    rgr8house rgr8house Feb 5, 2016 11:20 AM in response to kkaland
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 5, 2016 11:20 AM in response to kkaland

    AirParrot 2 was the culprit.  Deleting AirParrotDriver.kext & APExtFramebuffer.kext fixed it for me! 

    - Go to [HD]\System\Library\Extensions

    - Delete AirParrotDriver.kext & APExtFramebuffer.kext

    - reboot


  • by kkaland,

    kkaland kkaland Feb 5, 2016 12:09 PM in response to kkaland
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 5, 2016 12:09 PM in response to kkaland

    Figured it out! It was Cisco AnyConnect for me. Completely removed it, and everything has been great since. I use openconnect instead now. AnyConnect is a piece of garbage.

  • by isottino,

    isottino isottino Sep 28, 2016 12:24 AM in response to kkaland
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 28, 2016 12:24 AM in response to kkaland

    I just restarted my computer and drag&drop working now. But I believe this is a temporary solution.

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