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Three-finger drag gestures working sporadically on 2016 MacBook Pros, users say

Some buyers of Apple's new MacBook Pros are finding that the three-finger drag gesture is working inconsistently on their trackpads, if at all, according to complaints on Apple's support forums and elsewhere.

Where the problem is intermittent, it may manifest only on some parts of the trackpad. Some owners, including people on MacRumors forums, have speculated that the issue is related to palm rejection technology.

Either way it's unclear if the issue is a hardware or software defect, and Apple hasn't officially acknowledged the situation. Both 13- and 15-inch systems are being impacted.

Three-finger drag is available with OS X Yosemite or later, and can be used to reposition windows without moving the mouse cursor and clicking. It can be toggled through OS X/macOS's trackpad settings, located under the Accessibility section of System Preferences.



21 Comments

lepton 20 Years · 111 comments

Perhaps if you keep your three fingers close together, it thinks it is a palm and rejects it..

bobolicious 10 Years · 1178 comments

I am surprised this personal trackpad preference favourite was moved to the 'Accessibility' section of the settings ? No issues yet here... If anyone has an option for USB-C DisplayPort output I'm all ears with thanks - hard to understand the lack of support in Apple's own TB3>TB2 adapter for their own LED Cinema Displays, as it is also part of the default TB spec...?

dysamoria 12 Years · 3430 comments

I am surprised this personal trackpad preference favourite was moved to the 'Accessibility' section of the settings ? 

That would explain why it's an issue. That's stuff Apple likely doesn't test much.

mbtskysurfer 15 Years · 5 comments

I am returning my MBP 15 w/TB, due to constant crashes, this touchpad issue, and a nagging problem with the internet connection.. that really was the last straw. I work remote, and spend most of my time on Google Hangouts. Anytime I would open a new Safari (or Chrome) window and type into the search bar the traffic from the auto search bar would cause the connection to drop. Usually it was just an interrupt in audio and video but a couple times it resulted in the loss of connection. My late 2014 MBP never exhibited this problem.

digitol 15 Years · 276 comments

We at Apple call this a "Feature"  :)