Home Forums Mac Software Mac Operating Systems Disabling spring-loaded folders

I've disabled spring-loaded folders in the Finder Preferences.
Some of my folders (especially those sitting on the Desktop) respect such, others don't — ie, I can drag a file out of some folders to the Desktop and it stays where I drop it; the same attempt with other folders leads to the file being shuttled off to the far upper-left corner of the screen.

Something's royally screwed up here: The action should be the same for all folders.

EDIT: I just noticed that 2 items (Word documents) created within minutes of one another receive different treatment when being moved out of the same folder: one remains where I drop it on the Desktop and the other zips to the upper-left corner of the screen. I cannot find any differences in the info in their information panels.
It would appear that the system is schizophrenic, if not psychotic. This doesn't bode well for a machine or for its logic.

You're misunderstanding spring-loaded folders; the feature applies to dragging things into them as opposed to out of them.

Mac OS X 10.6 Help: Setting spring-loaded folders is not Lion-specific, but it is an accurate description thereof.

As for your files "being shuttled off to the far upper-left corner of the screen," that may be a .DS_store file issue, but although I know what to suggest, I'll leave it to a better teacher.

The issue of the icons moving may have been addressed via the 10.7.2 update. See OS X 10.7.2: What it fixed and what it didn't. I realize that your dialup connection is not the greatest for downloading the updater but you may have to bite the bullet. You probably aren't doing anything productive between 11 PM and 5 AM anyway.

Another update?! I haven't gone for it yet, but will do.
EDIT: I just checked for 10.7.2 update. 435.6MB which would take, according to Apple, 26 hours to download! I'll have to see if I can get it to download onto a thumbdrive from a broadband connection somewhere.

Further to this issue:
I find that if I set up a new folder, put documents I've created on the Desktop into the folder, then drag one of those files out, it snaps to the upper-left corner of the screen.
Add to that, if I do it with several files, they all pile up on one another in that corner.
Add to that, if I put them back in the folder and take them out again, they stay where they're dropped.
There's no rhyme or reason to this as far as I can see.

Get used to updates... Tiger went to 10.4.11, and Leopard and Snow Leopard went to 10.x.8. (Even worse for your situation is that Apple offers Combo Updaters that we frequently recommended running either by default or as a troubleshooting technique, and they can run to more than 1GB!)

Let's see what happens with the 10.7.2 Update, but if your issue isn't resolved we may have to go the .DS_Store file route.

Hopefully, you'll find someone who can download the update for you, as you said. If so, be sure to get the Combo Update. If you could update yourself, via Software Update, you would get the incremental update (assuming that you are now at 10.7.1). If you are using 10.7.0, Software Update will give you the Combo 10.7.2 so you would skip 10.7.1 and go directly to 10.7.2. These updates are HUGE so you really need broadband.

If all else fails, email me at jchuzi (at) hvc (dot) rr (dot) com and I'll download it, burn it to DVD, and mail it to you.

Thanks. I already downloaded 10.7.1 (as noted in other posts); it wasn't that big.
I read the article you recommended and nothing in the 10.7.2 update seems crucial to me nor would it fix any of my more immediate issues.
Software Update tells me that there is a whack of stuff (eg, another half GB update for iTunes, about which I care not at all), something about Thunderbolt and iCloud (again, only a vague clue as to what they're about and no need for them).
I don't even know if I can download the update onto a thumbdrive; Apple tech support isn't available (apparently they just released a new iPhone and the phone lines are clogged, for who knows how long).

It was small because a 10.x.1 update always is incremental ('delta') only; the first Combo updater starts with 10.x.2 (combining 10.x.1 and 10.x.2). Subsequent Combo updaters incorporate all previous 10.x updates, and can repair problems these previous update components might have sustained. This is an important reason why they are often recommended over the so-called 'delta' updaters.

You cannot adequately judge whether a particular update will do you any good based on its Apple blurb, because only a small part of what it does is documented there. That said, IMHO it's always a good idea to wait a week or so to see if there are issues with a particular update, except perhaps with 'emergency' security updates. Beyond that, it's strongly recommended to apply Mac OS X updates ASAP.

Via another hour-long telephone session with Apple support earlier today, I carried out the following instructions ...

In ~/Library/Preferences: Trash helpviewer.plist and helpviewer.plist.lockfile

In ~/Library/Caches: Trash all folders

In Macintosh HD/Library/Caches: Trash all folders

Restart iMac, and then Empty Trash.

Doing so (seems to have) corrected:
– The spring-loaded folder/file issue
– The Help Center / Help Viewer issues
– Who knows what else?

So, clearly there was much corruption in my iMac/OS X which has been dealt with.

If this overlaps with suggestions by others in these forums, then once again I thank assembled gurus.

Cool! Glad to hear this finally worked. For future reference, the emptying of various caches can be accomplishes by utilities either wholesale or customized to your preference. These utilities have been mentioned before in your various threads, and include OnyX, Maintenance, IceClean (freeware), Cocktail, MacPilot etc. Note that some of them have not yet been updated for Lion.

That's great news. Just bear in mind that —as per post #2 —you (probably) never had any "Spring-loaded folder issue" -- because the contents of post #1 and post #4 don't describe anything related to what Spring-loaded folders are about.


Quick tip (for all): Even with Spring-loaded folders disabled in Finder's prefs, we can still obtain that behavior by just tapping the spacebar while hovering over a folder with dragged items. That's how i prefer it anyway (a more controlled spring, rather than auto/delay).