Cannot drag and drop files in Finder on Yosemite 10.10

Well I have this problem and restarting does not help! This is really annoying and a big problem fpr me. Please can anyone help woth this? Thanks

For two days I tried everything I could to get the drag and drop to start working again in Yosemite on my MacBook Pro Retina. I even re-installed the OS via Disk Recovery. I wound up at the Apple Store where they couldn’t find the bug either, but we did the following and I am back up and running. There is a bit of a downside, so please read all the way through.

I have no idea if this will help you, but if you log in under a GUEST account and this drag and drop issue is NOT there - then try this. For whatever reason this bug was localized to just my single user settings Library. The GUEST account could drag and drop fine. Weird. Anyway, here’s what we did at the Apple Store that has kept me up and running….

1. Create a new user
2. Logout (deactivates the busted user library) and then login as that new user.
3. Enable Root User (superuser) while logged in under this new user. YouTube has some 1min. videos on how to do this.
4. Navigate to the Library (which is usually invisible) listed under your original admin user account.
5. Rename this folder. I just added ORIGINAL to it.
6. Also, create an alias for this folder and leave it there.
7. Go turn off Root User and log out.
8. Now, when you log back in under your usual User Acct. the system can’t find the Library system folder (because you renamed it) so it creates a fresh one. This new Library folder will still be invisible to you, but should work.

This fixed my drag and drop problem.

What this does though is kill all of your plists, saved website passwords, bookmarks, application settings, etc. for everything. I mean everything. Which kind of stinks.

This is why we created the alias in Step 05, click on it and you can open your ORIGINAL Library folder and drag out the files as you need them. I guess one day I'll drag over the one setting that borked my machine, but I haven't found it yet.

This is certainly not ideal and may not even be the best solution. But it got me up and running with no loss of files, just slows me down as I have to re-populate all my log-ins, etc.

Hopefully someone will come up with a better fix or patch.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for this, I will give it a go later.

I'm having the same problem. Now I have to restart my Mac Pro running Yosemite 10.10 like 2 or 3 times per day!

Not something that I would expect from a computer that costs more than $4,000.

Cmon Apple! Seriously?

Restart did not fix it for me.

This is due to a corrupt library file. I found this through troubleshooting on my own system.

/Users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

Using a separate user (I did it using root), delete that file.

Reboot.

Yosemite will rebuild the file for you automatically. You should be in good shape after that.

For reference, I did this on a Macbook Pro Retina, Mid 2012, Yosemite 10.10 14A389

I also had trutrav problem which I have entirely solved by deleting file "com.apple.finder.plist" in ~/Library/Preferences.

No need to log as root for me though.

Hold down the option key while selecting the Go menu and selecting the Library on the pull down to find that file.

Jay42k & Delphi8000-

Thank you for the replies and zeroing in on the issue file.

I followed you steps and deleted the file and rebooted.

Everything is running smoothly since.

Except iMessage notifications and Handoff detection (I'm no longer getting the prompt on the laptop to Handoff).

If you guys are still getting the notifications and prompts then I'll assume I have created another issue for myself and will keep digging.

Thanks again.

The restart method just feels like PC to me. Regarding that "just restart" was chosen as correct answer, running

rm /Users/MY-USERNAME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

in Terminal, your solution, was actually the only solution that worked for me, and it fixed it instantaneous; no need to even log out.

My problem was severe instant drag drops when I didn't even let got of left button, and the inability to right click.

Strange though it was a Finder problem, because this was happening in all apps.

WARNING: Super easy fix-

I have encountered this problem in several versions of OSX. As a matter of fact I encountered it twice today. What I have found to be a "quick fix" is to click on the apple in the upper left corner and then select "sleep." Once the computer has fallen asleep for a few seconds you simply wake it back up and your drag and drop functionality is magically restored! Amazing what a nap can do. Did this work for you also?

Not working for me...

Thank you jay42k.

I did as you outlined, but still had some iMessage, Handoff, etc. issues. So I did a re-install of Yosemite.

It has been just over a week and I have had no issues. It's been great.

So deleting the .plist jay42k mentions + re-installing Yosemite (via Mac recovery tool) fixed the issues I was having.

Thanks jay42k. Helped to solve the issue for me. Still annoying but at least now back to normal.

I still have the issue. Dont have the patience to reinstall the OS for this. Wonder why a trivial issue like this hasnt been fixed by apple yet !