Big Sur Can't Drag & Drop Files Across Spaces with Trackpad

Found it. You have to go to system pref>accessibility>pointer control>mouse & trackpad>trackpad options>check enable dragging and the you have a choice of option that replaced the click and drag it became tap twice + hold and drag and let go or use 3 fingers, tap (not click) hold and slide... https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/unac899/mac

Preference > Trackpad > point and click

change LOOK UP & data detector to tap with THREE FINDERS (vs 1).

Apparently, with the Big Sur upgrade changed a default setting for drag and drop while in FINDER.

Fixing this came only after an extended period of undisclosed curse words spewing from my brain right out the front door (mouth). In fact initially I just switched to ipad to move files = huge pain in the ***. But today I finally figured the above out and drag and drop in finder is back to normal.

It's a bug with Finder. I frequently encounter it too in Big Sur running version 11.1 on my M1 MacBook Pro. The quickest temporary fix I know of is to press Command+Option+Escape > select Finder > press the blue 'Relaunch' button.

Hey, Marcomé, thanks for picking this up. I found your solution didn't work for me but it did prompt me to have a play around with some settings. Check this - I found that in System Preferences > Trackpad > More Gestures tab "App Exposé" was unchecked. I have checked this box (also changed it back to the three-finger swipe) and I seem to have the function back ...ish. The swipe to Exposé still seems somewhat inconsistent so I've set the bottom-right hot corner to Mission Control and the Exposé behaviour seems more reliable.

On mac 11.1 macbookpro 2020 this works: You have to go to system pref>accessibility>pointer

control>mouse & trackpad>trackpad options>check enable

dragging and the you have a choice of option that replaced the click and

drag it became tap twice + hold and drag and let go or use 3 fingers,

tap (not click) hold and slide... https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/unac899/mac

From what I understood, in Big Sur the way to drag and drop has changed a tad.

You have to go to system pref>accessibility>pointer

control>mouse & trackpad>trackpad options>check enable

dragging and the you have a choice of option that replaced the click and

drag it became tap twice + hold and drag and let go or use 3 fingers,

tap (not click) hold and slide... https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/unac899/mac

Canadian Chad's solution, "Command+Option+Escape > select Finder > press the blue 'Relaunch' button" is the best workaround on this thread. It works every time. The other workarounds such as "System Preferences > Accessibility > Pointer Control > Trackpad Options > check Enable Dragging" only works about half of the time, I recommend relaunching Finder to anyone experiencing this issue based on my experience as I use this function almost daily.

I recently updated to Big Sur and also had the same issue. Just found a way to fix it:

System Preferences > Trackpad > More Gestures > Swipe between full-screen apps > select Swipe left or right with three fingers.

My original setting was Swipe left or right with four fingers and the drag & drop across space didn't work after update to Big Sur (worked fine before update).

After making this change, I can swipe between spaces with either four fingers like before or three fingers. However, the drag & drop works only with three-finger swipe.

Agree. This was the most frustrating thing ever. I have been suffering since the Big Sur install. Periodically, I kept looking for the answer unsuccessfully.

Today my **** ended. Apple>preferences>Accessibility>Pointer Control> Mouse&Trackpad> Tick the box Spring-loading delay

Hope this helps you all.

I was able to fix it.

Click the Apple Icon (top right) > System Preferences > Trackpad > Point & Click

Change "Look up & Data Indicators" to "Tap with three fingers" instead of "Force Click with one finger".

This will allow you to drag and drop files again with the Trackpad.

I have the exact same situation happen to me after updating to Big Sur which I did in the last month.

I found out that if you hold down "Control" while attempting to use one finger to press on the trackpad and hold a file, while I use another four fingers to swipe between spaces, then it works as it did on Catalina without holding "control" key.

This is definitely a bummer, since you could do it with one hand on Catalina. But at least, it works on Big Sur with 2 hands when you hold "control" key.

Alex.

I don't see this answer anywhere. System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Pointer Control -> Then click on the Trackpad Options button on lower left of the screen. Then check Enable dragging.

This answer is somewhat buried up there. Thought I'd post it again. Seems clearly to work just like it should. Enable dragging: System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Pointer Control -> Then click on the Trackpad Options button on lower left of the screen. Then check Enable dragging.

Dear Mac-users,

My Mac: 1 week old, MacBook Air M1 chip (so not the pro version)

I had this problem too and tried to solve it by rebooting, force quit/relaunch Finder, etc.

This is the solution to solve this issue permanently:

settings/trackpad > tab “point and click” > untick the first box “searching and datadetection”

Once I had done this, drag and drop was no longer an issue, works perfect all the time.

Hope it helps (it should!)

Good luck!

Jun 30, 2021 6:05 PM in response to KazukiCHEN

Dear Mac-users,

My Mac: 1 week old, MacBook Air M1 chip (so not the pro version)

I had this problem too and tried to solve it by rebooting, force quit/relaunch Finder, etc.

This is the solution to solve this issue permanently:

settings/trackpad > tab “point and click” > untick the first box “searching and datadetection”

Once I had done this, drag and drop was no longer an issue, works perfect all the time.

Hope it helps (it should!)

Good luck!