Three fingers drag n' drop not working since MacOS 26

It's not fixed for me. After I drag a window and release 3 fingers, the next place I click to, the window I was dragging will often move there. It's like it doesn't know how to release the 3 finger drag.

Costilotti wrote:

Ever since updating to MacOS 26, I have been encountering issues with dragging and selecting with the three-finger gesture on my MacBook Pro trackpad: the action begins, but then when I lift up my fingers the device does not register that and keeps dragging or selecting the content I was interacting with. Other than that, the other interactions (click, double click, right click, touch, swipe etc) work fine.

I have tried using external mouse and in that case it works perfectly, same if I use the right click gesture. I have not tried with an external trackpad as I do not currently have one available.

I suppose this an Apple Magic Mouse; otherwise I can't see what three finger drag could be.

Wondering if anyone else has had the same issue and has found a way to solve it.

I usually do not have this feature on, but I did try it for a while and it appears to be working as expected here (M4 PRO MacBook Pro 14" running Tahoe).

I have a MBP 2019. I have the exact same issue as you. Never been an issue with previous releases. 3-finger gestures is completely unusable with Tahoe. Haven't found any fixes for it. I, too, have to resort to an external mouse or turn off 3-finger drag.

leandrosanchez wrote:

I have the same issue after the upgrade, using a 3rd party touchpad. In the previous MacOs was working super fine with the accesibility settings enabled / three finger drag. After the Macos 26 upgrade, it does not work properly, it does not lock properly and it is impossible to drag windows for example. I had to connect a Mouse for now.

There is no accounting for third party devices...

—if in doubt search the developers website or contact their: Support/Help/FAQ/Known issues/compatibility/updates/firmware update…

Contact a third-party vendor - Apple Support

Contact a third-party vendor - Apple Support

I have the exact same issue. Three-finger drag is (was) my most favorite gesture, but with Tahoe update, it is useless. When I lift my fingers it keeps selecting text, dragging windows etc. It is extremely annoying. Looking for ways to downgrade to Sequoia..

Thanks for explaining this workaround. This bug has seriously impacted my productivity since I rely so much on being able to quickly and accurately copy and paste between windows. I hope this gets resolved soon!

Seems like this three finger gesture is really a problem for many users. In my case, when text is selected within web-based text fields (such as form inputs, textareas, or content-editable areas) and deleted using the Backspace key, the selection remains active instead of collapsing to a single caret position. As a result, composing text becomes unnecessarily difficult and the newly highlighted text is unintentionally overwritten or deleted — even writing this message is currently a challenge :D

I have been a Macbook user for 12 years and this is the first time such a case happening to me, and it is really frustrating. I honestly do not want to deactivate this feature as I find it very practical and useful, besides, I am really used to it. Hope there will be a fix soon.

This deletion of text seems to be a completely different problem than the three finger drag.

I have not seen or heard of it before, so I think it may be something particular to your setup. You should probably start a new thread, describe the issue in detail and include an Etrecheck report

Just tested with Macbook Air ( 2024, M3 13inch ) touchpad, same issue.

Appreciated but this is still a workaround, not an actual fix.

same issue still exists after the MacOS upgrade to 26.1 :(

Done! Hope others do the same to raise the visibility with Apple.

****, I spoke too soon. After a reboot, the problem came back. Can't imagine why it would work immediately after the 26.2 upgrade and then stop working after the subsequent reboot.