Windows 10: Change Drag and Drop Sensitivity in Windows

How to: Change Drag and Drop Sensitivity in Windows

How to Change Drag and Drop Sensitivity in Windows


Information By default in Windows, if you move an item by a distance of 4 pixels and leave it, it will result in a drag and drop operation.

When you drag and drop files and folders in Windows, they will get moved or copied by default based on the source and destination locations.

Many people find that it is way to easy for them to inadvertently drag and drop files from one folder to another with a default distance of 4 pixels.

If you increase the distance to say 50 pixels, then you will have to drag items (ex: text, files, folders, windows, etc...) by at least 50 pixels before it can drop.

This tutorial will show you how to change the drag and drop sensitivity to what you want for your account in Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 10.


Note If you have a high screen resolution (ex: 4K UHD), then you may want to increase the drag and drop sensitivity to an even higher pixel.


Here's How:

1. Press the Win+R keys to open Run, type regedit, and click/tap on OK to open Registry Editor.

2. Navigate to the registry key below in the left pane of Registry Editor. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop




3. In the right pane of the Desktop key, double click/tap on the DragHeight string (REG_SZ) value to modify it. (see screenshot below step 2)

4. Enter a number for how many pixels you want, and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)


Note The default value is 4 pixels.

If you set the value too high (ex: 1000), you won't be able to drag anything (ex: files, folders, windows).




5. In the right pane of the Desktop key, double click/tap on the DragWidth string (REG_SZ) value to modify it. (see screenshot below step 2)

6. Enter the same value you used for DragHeight from step 4, and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)



7. When finished, close Registry Editor.

8. restart the computer to apply.


That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Change Default Drag and Drop Action in Windows
• How to Enable or Disable Dragging Maximized Windows in Windows 10
• How to Turn On or Off Show window contents while dragging in Windows 10

:)

 

Change default file drag-and-drop action to Copy rather than Move

How to Change Default Drag and Drop Action in
Windows

Shawn at
www.TenForums.com has the simplest answer. See link below.

Change Drag and Drop Default Action in Windows

 

Change default file drag-and-drop action to Copy rather than Move

Thanks Terry,

It appears you've found the reason for this behaviour... I haven't tested it but from subsequent posts it looks like a likely suspect.

Hopefully an update will be forthcoming, although I won't hold my breath.

Nigel

 

Does this only affect File Explorer or does it also apply elsewhere (e.g. text selections in Notepad, Word, etc.)?

 

It also affected the text in Internet Explorer for me, so it appears that dragging text is affected as well. You don't really notice it unless you set high a value though.

 

If you don't set it to high, ya'll should be ok, like I said I have twitchy fingers, although this would really be useful for laptop users using the touchpad, as they can really be dangerous*Zip

 

Thanks. *Smile

I can imagine that hilarity ensues if the new values are too high. *Biggrin

 

I had set the value to 5000 for the fun of it, and I couldn't drag anything afterwards. LOL

 

Hey Shawn, I had reduced mine for a bit, from the above mentioned 100 to 25, last week, but had to turn it up again to 100, as I D&D'd a system folder into another by accident today*Redface

Thank god File Explore has a very little known "Undo move" right click option*Party




Anyhow, it might be a good idea to add in the tutorial, that users with very high resolution monitors, like 4K UHD, really need to go up on the pixel count. Even 50-75px was too little for my 4K screen.

 

Thank you Cliff. Note added. *Smile

 

You're welcome Shawn.
The problem on my system is with the M.2 drive, the D&D goes soooo fast, even with huge folders and files, you sometimes don't catch "what" was moved, only that "something" got moved, so that undo move came in really handy*Biggrin

But now after uping it, I'm ok now