Desktop icons don't 'land' where dropped.

In Mavericks my dekstop icons never seem to 'land' where I drop them after dragging.

Before when you drag and drop a file it landed at the closest spot in the grid from where you 'dropped' it. Now they just drop at random.

If I let one go at the top right corner, it might end up one grid point over, it might end up on the bottom of the screen in the middle, or right in the middle, there is no telling where they end up, ofter they end up underneith open windows, so I have to close down stuff to find them again.

Is this a know issue (if so, is there a solution) or am I completely alone and on my own?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Oct 26, 2013 2:29 AM

22 replies

Jan 28, 2014 12:39 PM in response to eipi

Setting it to "none" does indeed seem to help. Not having icons snap to the grid is a pain though, so both options have a great disatvantage...

TaipanX

Level 1

0 points

Jan 29, 2014 10:38 AM in response to RoelVeldhuyzen

In my case it's already set to "none".

Fabmini

Level 1

11 points

Jan 29, 2014 11:27 AM in response to RoelVeldhuyzen

After upgrading my 2012 MBP to Mavericks in the weekend I now also have this problem.

If I want to drag an icon out of a folder onto the desktop, it seems to get parked somewhere completely off the screen. Not nice; first time it happened I thought I had lost my file ... Luckily, it's definitely there somewhere, but I can't get at it unless I look for it in Spotlight. This has started happening with a vengeance since today, when trying to move Word documents to the desktop.

I've tried everything suggested in this thread, but nothing seems to help. I have my desktop set to 'snap to grid', but have changed it to 'none': this doesn't help unfortunately.

Fabmini

Level 1

11 points

Jan 29, 2014 12:12 PM in response to Fabmini

I have now set my desktop to 'none' again and restarted my mac, but icons I move from a folder to the desktop keep disappearing completely from view.

I've just discovered that when I open Finder, the missing file is present in the Finder window. It also appears on the desktop itself when I press the Grid spacing slider switch in the Show view options menu (I only have to touch the slider switch, no actual sliding involved -> missing file magically appears on the desktop, where I originally dropped it). Strange desktop goings on ...

Sounds like a bug in Mavericks to me! I've never had anything like this with Mountain Lion, or any other OS for that mattter.

By the way, this doesn't only happen with Word files ...

Fabmini

Level 1

11 points

Jan 29, 2014 12:46 PM in response to Fabmini

Having run out of ideas I relaunched Finder via the Force Quit menu, and that seems to have done the trick, for now anyway. Strange that restarting my Mac earlier didn't help.

Feb 12, 2016 5:06 AM in response to eipi

Thank you so much, I know this is an old thread but your answer worked for me and just saved me loads of bother!

May 3, 2016 9:24 AM in response to LouiseRRRRR

What worked for you Louise?

I'm having this issue on Yosemite. Late 2013 iMac.

I've tried sorting icons by none which does not help. Relaunching Finder does not work. I tried looking for “~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist” but I don’t appear to have one…

But this does only seem to happen when copying a file from Finder.

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Desktop icons don't 'land' where dropped.