How to enable and use three fingers drag & drop and text/image selection on Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan

Please Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

The multi-touch Trackpad is very useful to achieve many tasks on Mac using multiple fingers at the same time. To set up Trackpad, you can launch System Preferences app on MacClick Trackpad, and set Primary and Secondary Click, Swipe Gesture, Launchpad, Mission Control, App Expose and so on…

However, you won’t find any option under TrackPad settings that will allow you to use 3 fingers to select texts or drag an app or files. When it is not enabled, you can still do these stuffs by clicking and holding trackpad with one finger, and moving another to drag an app/file or select texts. Well, there is an easy way that doesn’t even require you to click, you can simply move your fingers on trackpad.

How to enable and use three fingers drag & drop and text/image selection on Mac

  • Launch System Preferences on Mac (click apple icon that is located in Menu Bar, and select System Preferences)

System Preferences

  • Click Accessibility

Mac Accessibility

  • Select Mouse & Trackpad 
  • Click Trackpad options

TrackPad additional option

  • Tick the option “Enable dragging”
  • Select the option “three finger drag”
  • Hit OK

Enable Three Finger Dragging

Thats it, and you are done!

Now you can hold app with three fingers and move/drag app window. It’s not just app, but you can also drag and drop any files within folders, desktop or anywhere in your Mac.

Now you can also use three finder to select texts, or multiple images. Simply move three fingers over texts or images on the finder, desktop or app.

Watch the video if you are still facing any issue

Related; How to right click on a Mac : 5 Ways to do