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Drag and drop stops working in maverick

Hello,

running Maverick and running into this issue twice already.

I can't drag files in finder. I can select them, I can multiple select them by dragging, but clicking on them and draging them does not work at all until I reboot.


Anyone know of this issue?

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2013), OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Nov 22, 2013 11:51 AM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Nov 24, 2013 8:42 AM

Hey cromestant,


I would run through the troubleshooting steps in the following article, specifically the section titled "If the issue occurs in various applications, or in Mac OS X" here:


Mac OS X: How to troubleshoot a software issue

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1199


Welcome to Apple Support Communities!


Sincerely,

Delgadoh

91 replies

Dec 19, 2014 7:09 PM in response to soufianb

Hi everyone,

Same problem but I made it work by doing the following steps:

1. Hold your file, by keeping the trackpad (or mouse) pressed;

2. While file is still held, hover over the destination folder you want. A little "+" (plus sign) appears below the file/files you are holding;

3. If you press "command" key before dropping, the little plus sign will disappear. That's the indication you want that you are moving the files, instead of copying.


For some reason, it seems that Finder has copy as default.....


Best.

Jan 10, 2015 10:01 PM in response to cromestant

Backgorund:

Drag-drop suddenly stops working.


Temporary solutions:

4-5 reboots

Removing com.apple.finder.plist file


Have not tried:

Reinstall Yosemite


What I found out:

I found out that it's not only about drag/drop - it's about the clipboard. As far as copy/paste went, "nothing" work anymore. Not drag and drop, not cmd+c, not Edit > Copy. I started experience the issue just yesterday I think - it came out of the blue.


However, a week ago I created an Automator scripts that review folder X for extension Y and then moves the file of said extension into a separate folder. Essentially, it's a cut and paste job that Automator does all the time.


Soluton:

Removed the Automator workflow i created from /users/username/library/workflows. Rebooted computer. Drag/drop and copy/paste has been working for over an hour.

Jun 18, 2015 3:09 PM in response to gypsy42

This happens in Yosemite as well. Drives me crazy and they may never admit that it happens until they fix it. For me this has nothing to do with the mail app. It's just in the finder windows.


PS It appears to be a general Finder instability. Sometimes when this happens the Finder will lock altogether, or other functions will begin to behave oddly, for example simply highlighting a file will not work. Relaunching the Finder helps with the other observed problems, but does not restore the ability to drag and drop.

Drag and drop stops working in maverick

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