Select and drag text on Mac OS X 10.6 doesn't allow me to drag I have just been enlightened on what I previously thought was a short-coming of the whole Mac OS X platform - that like Windows, a user may select a block of text and drag it. This is particularly useful in developing.

However, the reason I thought it wasn't an available option was because it has never worked for me. No programs allow for select and drag, and I've gone through several online tutorials and forums to see if anybody else has the same issue. None of my work-mates can figure it out.

Why would my whole system dis-allow text dragging? Now that I know it's possible, it's driving me crazy not being able to do it.

I've gone through the System Preferences and the Mouse panel has no specific drag option. Trackpad has a single-finger drag option, but that's not allowing dragging, even with the trackpad.

I'm on a Macbook Pro, from around 2008. I'm using an external mouse and running OS 10.6.

Edit: apparently, the cursor should change when holding the mouse button for a second or two, but on my system, the cursor never changes, no matter how long I hold the mouse button down.
As far as I know there's no preference to enable this, it's just a built-in feature with no on/off switch.

My best advice is to make sure that you hold down the mouse before starting to drag the text. There's some delay built in such that if you try to drag too quickly, you'll just end up selecting more text.

The process that works for me is:


Select the text you want, then release the mouse button.
Left-click and hold on the selection for a second.
Drag the text to wherever you want it.


The holding before dragging is the key.

I made a quick screencast to demonstrate how this works for me on 10.7.5.