moving folders and files in finder and changing the sidebar is unreliable

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Level 1

78 points

moving folders and files in finder and changing the sidebar is unreliable

I find that if I want to move a file or move a folder or change the finder sidebar, it sometimes just will not work.

The simplest example is moving a file from one folder to another. I click on the file to highlight it, then click/hold to try to move it. Often the file won't go anywhere. I've found that if I click/hold with a "swirling motion" that this seems to "pickup" the file or folder and then I can move it. It might just be coincidence though that this appears to work.

What could be simpler than click/hold and move?

Yet, sometimes I have to repeat this as much as a dozen times to move the file/folder.

The file/folder (or sidebar entry) always highlights. There doesn't appear to be anything happening WRT the file or folder (it isn't open in an application, there are no iCloud icons next to it), but the thing just won't move. I often have to try it repeatedly and/or wait an extended period of time (at least 1 minute, but this is subjective so it could be longer).

This has been happening since I upgraded to Mojave, now I am on Catalina so it has been over a year.

I also have this problem if I want to drag a file/folder to the trash but if I select "Move to Trash" from the finder window tool bar, there is no problem

MacBook Pro 13”, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jul 30, 2020 7:07 PM

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Answer 1

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John Zwiebel Author

Level 1

78 points

Jul 31, 2020 6:42 AM in response to Barney-15E

I have never tried to modify the finder other than using System Preferences or Finder Preferences

In System Preferences/Trackpad/Point and Click I have "tap to click" selected

I turned it off and I still have the same problem

In System Preferences/Accessibility/Pointer Control/Trackpad Options I did not have "Enable Dragging" selected.

That did not prevent me from dragging anything.

I enabled dragging and I still have the same problem.

To repeat -- the problem is that:

- sometimes I can click/hold on a file and move it immediately
- sometimes I click on the file to highlight it and a second click/hold will allow me to move it
- sometimes no matter what I do, I cannot move the file

An "interesting" thing happened. While doing this repeatedly somehow I created a file with the same name as the folder I was trying to move. The file type was a "Text Clipping" and it had only the name of the file in it.

I believe I may have figured out the problem.

For years using the trackpad, I would click/hold with my thumb and then use my forefinger to move the file.

I did not have any problem until using Mojave

I have found that if I don't use my thumb but only click/hold with my forefinger, I have no problem moving the file.

I have disabled "tap to click". With click set to "light" tapping isn't useful for me

I have disabled "enable dragging" FWIW: I cannot determine that this does anything

Another "interesting" thing. Emails from "The Guardian" (The British Newspaper) -- and ONLY "The Guardian" do not allow me to scroll down using two-finger scroll. If I make a gesture that initially is a two-finger up and immediately scroll down it works. As long as I keep scrolling up and down, it will work. If I stop scrolling for a second and try to scroll down, it will not work unless I repeat the up/down gesture.

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,848 points

Jul 31, 2020 7:33 AM in response to John Zwiebel

I don't know why they buried the dragging and drag lock into Accessibility. Those should be part of the Trackpad preferences.

A Text Clipping, which I thought died in Catalina, is a file created when you drag selected text into a Finder window. You can drag that clipping into documents and the text will be inserted. It's handy in a few instances, but probably rarely used by anyone. My favorite is creating an email distribution list where you don't have to put the people into Contacts. You can just make a text clipping of the email addresses and drag that into the To field in Mail.

I probably would have never checked again to see if it was just a bug in an earlier version of Catalina if you hadn't stumbled across it.

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Answer 3

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,848 points

Jul 31, 2020 4:16 AM in response to John Zwiebel

I've never experienced that.

Do you have anything installed that modifies the Finder in any way?

What are you settings for drag lock and Tap to Click?

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moving folders and files in finder and changing the sidebar is unreliable

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