Vscode: Better drag and drop / clipboard integration of files across applications

Created on 19 Nov 2015 · 29Comments · Source: microsoft/vscode

This includes being able to drag files and folders from VS Code into other applications as well as to being able to copy a file or folder to the native clipboard.

Specifically:

copy files/folders from VS Code file explorer to clipboard and paste into native OS explorer
copy files/folders from native OS explorer and paste into VS Code file explorer
support the native file data transfer when doing drag and drop (https://github.com/atom/electron/issues/2853)
support 3rd party tools such as WinRAR to open files from an archive (https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/90196)

feature-request help wanted upstream upstream-issue-linked workbench-dnd

Source

bpasero

👍72 ❤10 👀5 🚀1 🎉1

Most helpful comment

@bradennapier The drag and drop works now (1.30.2) but Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V is not.

joshuaavalon on 30 Jan 2019

👍7 😕1

All 29 comments

Does this cover dragging a folder from desktop to VSCode, and adding that folder into an existing project?

Right now, dragging a folder to an open project/window. Opens a new window on Mac. Which is not what people expect I suppose. Though, dragging a folder to the VSCode app icon should open a new window.

tinganho on 21 Oct 2016

We are explicitly disabling to drop a folder into the explorer to copy it to prevent accidentally large folder-copy operations. We could however allow to drop a folder and ask the user for feedback, so I would say that is independent from this particular issue here.

bpasero on 21 Oct 2016

Played around a little bit with https://github.com/electron/electron/pull/6333 but unfortunately once I do that, no in-app DND seems to be working anymore...

bpasero on 21 Jan 2017

Some findings:

macOS: looks like it is possible to read/write files to/from the clipboard (via https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/9035#issuecomment-359161275)
Windows: it is possible to read a single file from the clipboard (via https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/9035#issuecomment-306933488) but not write to
Linux: no findings yet

Setting the "help wanted" label if someone has ideas how to get this working without having to introduce a 3rd party module or even native code.

bpasero on 3 Feb 2018

It looks like when writing to NSFilenamesPboardType on macOS, the renderer crashes when pasting into an input field right after.

bpasero on 6 Feb 2018

Any update here? Copy and paste is a pretty basic need :-\

bradennapier on 29 Jan 2019

👍3

@bradennapier The drag and drop works now (1.30.2) but Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V is not.

joshuaavalon on 30 Jan 2019

👍7 😕1

Ah ok, I only tested the shortcuts as I usually work in full screens and swipe between them.

Def looking forward to solution, love me some vscode otherwise :)

bradennapier on 30 Jan 2019

Will ever the CTRL +C , CTRL+V work ? :) I am having the latest version of VS Code :)

goxr3plus on 5 Mar 2019

👍1

Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V still not working. Any update? it's really annoying.

mehranhadidi on 25 Mar 2019

👍1

Still no copy/paste - I was very surprised that copying a file from the (Microsoft) VSCode file explorer to the (Microsoft) Windows file explorer did not work. Seems like pretty basic functionality.

djwashburn on 13 May 2019

Up till now it seems that this problem hasn't been fixed. It's quite troublesome to drag file between windows everytime. Sincerely hope to add this feature asap.

yyb1995 on 28 May 2019

support the native file data transfer when doing drag and drop (electron/electron#2853)

I often have to upload the python files I write into some webapp, which supports dropping of files. It would be great if I could indeed drag them directly from the vscode explorer.

Olivier-OH on 6 Jun 2019

Still waiting

irfanbaigse on 30 Jul 2019

I'm also waiting for Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V option.

guptahitesh121 on 21 Aug 2019

Problem still exists in 1.37.1. Please fix it, very annoying.

rykiplov on 22 Aug 2019

I'm waiting for Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V option too.

leekerberos on 30 Oct 2019

👍3

It is interesting that is still an issue. It's been 4+ years ..

iedmrc on 11 Nov 2019

It is interesting that is still an issue. It's been 4+ years ..

shenlanchenwei on 2 Dec 2019

It is interesting that is still an issue. It's been 4+ years ..

hoangemini on 23 Dec 2019

Can someone give some explanation why this issue cannot be solved?, I think Ctrl+C and CTRL+ V is heavy used in any application and a basic feature to have, also it's being 4 years...