Why can't I drag and drop documents into folder on desktop post macOS sonoma?

Relaunching Finder (🍎 > Force Quit > Finder > Relaunch) was the solution that worked for me.

I have been having this problem. What just worked for me, and I hope continues to work, is more lightly pressing track pad on the file I want to drag. If you click down all the way on the track pad, the file won't "take" to be dragged/moved.

I found this in Settings:

Accessibility > Trackpad options > Use trackpad for dragging

Before that I was able only to drag folders or files if they were shown as icons in Finder. So that works too.

M3 Pro, MacOS 14.3.1. I had a similar problem and the fix might apply here. Trying to drag & drop an attachment into email (Thunderbird), it kept opening a preview & I couldn't drag it into the email program. I turned off "Force Click and haptic feedback" in the trackpad settings and it now works like MacOS did for decades. HTH.

I have the same issue as the OP since upgrading to Sonoma. The spring loading option was already selected when I navigated to that area. Problem unsolved :(

Hi All,

Settings > Accessibility > Pointer control > Turn on Spring loading

Should be resolved.

Enjoy ;)

⚠️PEOPLE!!!!

It is now obvious that asking other end users in these forums is not making progress. Piling on her only makes it worse and insures you will not get individual help.

APPLE WILL NOT SEE YOUR ISSUE HERE!

To place this very real issue before an Apple employee, you must to use this feedback link:

Feedback - macOS - Apple

None of these work including the latest idea "sort by none". I think there is something wrong with the operating system

I have the same issue. Spring loading turned off and on again. What is going on? I neeeed that drag and drop

*EDIT* I CAN drag and drop, but not on to a folder tab like I used to. Now I must hold the file over the tab until the folder opens and I then I can drop the file into the folder. Dropping files on tabs is a HUGE time saver. Please fix this apple

I have the same problem and I can't fix it, but I can drag and drop by keeping option button pressed on the keyboard and then drag and drop.

vesque (see above) had the solution that worked for me. In OS Sonoma on my MacBook, a lighter pressure on the trackpad till a subtle click is felt will permit drag and drop. Firm pressure opens a preview of the file. Extremely annoying to those of us who are accustomed to the old click and drag but are uninformed about this feature.

I can drag and drop, using 3 fingers on the trackpad. I took me 2 days to find out. Hope it works for you:

1. Select the files to drag
2. Use three fingers on the trackpad, while the pointer is over the files to drag
3. Move your files to the final destination, and release the three finger.
4. And that will be it.

BR,

Pero JIMENEZ

Thanks for alerting me about the Force Click "gesture" Barney. Thanks to Vesque as well. I'm not sure, but it seems that Apple's penchant for adding baffling changes/upgrades to the OS which confuse users could be handled more effectively? By the way, my niece is an F-15 strike eagle pilot. Not sure if that's an "E" model:

Yes, it is. I was a Strike WSO quite a while ago. Her patches are strange to me, though. Wish her “good hunting” for me.

Neither do I. We could explore a bunch of options such as creating an empty folder somewhere and dragging it onto the Desktop to see what happens, but I think it's a moot point: you're simply unable to do something that you were able to do prior to updating macOS.

Trackpad options should have nothing to do with it. The only suggestion I have is to reinstall macOS.

How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support