How to paste a folder into a different folder?

Do as you please though, you appear to have found another solution that works for you.

When the window is full, drag/drop is also going to drop to the sub-folder that happens to be under the cursor when you release because there is no other space.

Drag to the edge of the window, or over a file, or to the right of the folder name where there is white space. The inside window frame will highlight. Drop.

If you have a window full of folders with exceedingly long names, you'll have to drop just to the left of a disclosure triangle.

I was expecting some consistency in the Mac.

All of the Views work differently. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a need for the different views.

No, right-clicking won't work as it expects a selection. It needs something to work on and nothing isn't something.

Contextual menu items are meant to do work on the thing selected. They are not merely another way to get to a list of commands.

LesMikesell wrote:

White space is not something, so when you right-click, it tries to find the nearest thing to select. Otherwise, the contextual menu would be blank because there is nothing that does something to nothing.

Maybe that is supposed to make sense - to someone. I don't follow how a white space is something that exists as a target for dropping but not as a place that deserves a menu for pasting.

Yes, it does make complete sense. I don't believe there is any other way I can explain it that would make sense.

The contextual menu isn't a substitute menu. It isn't a shortcut menu. It isn't a menu that appears in another place. It is not the same menu that appears in the Menu bar.

I would suggest you use Column View or Icon View and never get near List View.

LesMikesell wrote:

I don't follow how a white space is something that exists as a target for dropping but not as a place that deserves a menu for pasting.

Nevertheless that's the way the Finder has worked since 1984.

Perhaps you should drop your Linux / Windows preconceptions. A Mac is neither one. It does many of the same things, but it does them very differently.

The computers are supposed to be working for me, not the other way around. That's why I use the right-mouse copy, right mouse paste in the first place.

That explains your difficulties. In attempting to find a consistent method among the platforms you're using, you have forced yourself into finding a lowest common denominator.

Everything macOS does these days revolves around multitouch gestures. I haven't used a mouse since Lion, and can no longer imagine having to right-click this, left-click that. My Magic Mouse now sits in a desk drawer, neglected.

You have to hold the mouse button down the whole time? No wonder everyone on Windows uses copy and paste.

I just double-tap and drag. The icon sticks to the cursor until I tap again.

You don't have to have a window open to get there. Just place a few strategic shortcuts in the Sidebar. Drag over the sidebar folder and it springs open. Repeat until you drop on the one you want. On Windows, the Favorites don't expand so you have to go down to the bottom and start at the root of the hard drive. Talk about a gigantic mess.

Holding a mouse button down for that move is not nearly as hard as knowing what situations would have some other method available. Or undoing the surprising result when some quirky variation does something you didn't expect.

That exactly describes my whole workday on Windows.