The release of iOS 9 was a major step towards the iPad becoming a platform of its own. It was the first time the iPad received major features separate from the iPhone. However, it still left many iPad users wanting more. One of the glaring omissions was the ability to drag and drop data across apps. With the introduction of multitasking, iOS split view, and the iPad Dock, the feature made perfect sense. It’s been a long wait, but iOS 11 finally delivers.

• App For Dragging Files Mac Pc
• App For Dragging Files Mac Download

App For Dragging Files Mac Pc

Apr 10, 2019  Drag and drop is one of the frequently used features on Mac. The feature allows for interactions in the Mac OS Finder as well as other applications. This feature is designed such that it’s not easy to fail. But, if it does, everything seems out of the blue. To troubleshoot when drag and drop is not working Mac can be quite challenging. Sep 18, 2019  Verdict: Yoink is there to simplify your drag & drop process by taking the ‘drag’ out of it. The app has a pretty basic feature set, a few useful add-ons, and iOS companion which enables sync across your devices. So if you simply want to drag and drop files on your Mac, iPad and iPhone without any fuss, Yoink should be just enough.

Drag and drop is still in its infancy, but there are already some great apps updated to support it. If you have been itching to use drag and drop, these are some iOS 11 drag and drop apps you need to check out. Need a iOS 11 drag and drop tutorial? Check out this article.

Contents

• 1 The Best iPad Drag and Drop Apps on iOS 11: Apple’s Own Apps
• 2 Best iPad Drag and Drop Apps on iOS 11: Third-Party Apps

Related Articles

The Best iPad Drag and Drop Apps on iOS 11: Apple’s Own Apps

It’s no surprise many of Apple’s apps already support drag and drop. Even if you don’t normally use first-party apps, they are a good way to check out what’s new in iOS 11. I won’t cover every first-party app, but there are a few highlights. To see the full list of Apple’s apps that support drag and drop, check out their website.

Files

The Files app is arguably the highlight of iOS 11 and is really the hub for drag and drop. A good argument can be made that one doesn’t make sense without the other. The implementation is great. Drag and drop works just like you would expect. Just touch a file for a second and it will pop out enabling you to drag it to another app. It’s also just as easy to drag files into the app.

Safari

App For Dragging Files Mac Download

Safari is full of drag and drop possibilities. Images, text selections, and URLs can all be selected and you can drag them to other apps. You can also drag URLs from other apps into the address bar to visit a link, which is a nice touch.

Notes

Apple has placed a whole lot of attention on the Notes app over the past few years, and it continues to show. The power of drag and drop really shines in Notes. Many common tasks like adding images or copying text to a note are quicker than ever.

Mail

Mail is another app that benefits from drag and drop in a big way. In the past, Mail has been severely limited when dealing with multiple attachments. Just trying to add a few files to a new email has caused me multiple headaches. Drag and drop make dealing with attachments in Mail a breeze.

Using drag and drop, it is finally simple to add multiple files to a new message. Once you’ve highlighted a file for dragging, just tap on other files with your free hand to add them to the pile. You can then drop them directly into a message. You can also drag an entire email into another app to create a link back to the email. This can be especially helpful for creating email reminders.

Best iPad Drag and Drop Apps on iOS 11: Third-Party Apps

Apple’s vibrant developer community is usually quick to adopt new features and drag and drop is no different. There are already plenty of third-party apps that support the feature, but these are some of the best.

Bear

Bear is easily one of the best note-taking apps for the iPad, especially if you write in markdown. Similar to Apple’s Notes app, you can drag images, text, and files directly into the app. However, Bear does a poor job handling direct links to web pages, an area where Notes excels. Dragging files into the app is also hit or miss. The app crashed on me a few times when adding a PDF to a note.

For pure writing and note taking, Bear is the best app with drag and drop support available.

Airmail

There is no shortage of third-party email clients for the iPad. I’ve tried a majority of them but continue to come back to Airmail. The drag and drop support is similar to the default Mail app with one exception. In some apps, dropping a message will create a PDF rather than a link back to the email. In my usage, dragging a message into the Notes app created a PDF while dragging a message into Bear created a link back to the message. Attachments are also handled very well in Airmail. Attaching multiple files to a message is finally easy.

PDF Expert

PDF Expert is one of the best PDF apps on the App Store. It also has some neat tricks up its sleeves. It can serve as a document provider in the files app, which is a great place to locally store PDF files you may be reading through and annotating.

Readdle, the developer of PDF Expert, implemented drag and drop support between some of their own apps before Apple ever announced the feature. It makes sense their apps would be early out of the gate supporting the feature system-wide.

The implementation of drag and drop is straightforward and similar to the Files app. But if your work requires any amount of time with PDFs, PDF Expert is a no-brainer.

Copied

Clipboard managers are more power user-focused, but if you are in that camp Copied is the best out there. With drag and drop, anything you have stored in your clipboard history can be quickly moved into another app. This clipboard sharing includes text, images, links and so on.

Todoist

Todoist is one of most popular task management apps for iOS and drag and drop makes it even better. You can drag text messages, URLs, emails, images, PDFs, files, and more into Todoist.

Todoist has implemented drag and drop in a smart way. To create a new task you can drop items onto either the Quick Add button, project, label or filter view. If you drop an item into the comment screen, a new comment is created and pre-filled with the information. Getting different results depending on where you drop an item within the app feels like the way drag and drop should work. Hopefully, many other apps will follow suit and support similar implementation.

Figuring out what types of files can be moved in and out of apps is a bit of a learning process. But once you get a feel for it, you can be more productive working on the iPad than ever before.

FTP, or file transfer protocol, is simple: Connect to a far-off computer. Send your stuff to it, or get stuff from it. The end. And though we now live amid a plethora of cloud file storage services – Dropbox, Amazon S3, Google Drive, ad infinitum – the basic idea remains the same.

But finding the right app to make those transfers happen can get tricky. Search for 'FTP' in the App Store, and you're swiftly buried beneath a pile of contenders clamoring for your cash. Keep reading to discover which ones we liked best.

A few ground rules

Every app in this roundup supports good old reliable FTP and its more secure cousin, SFTP, usually with several intermediate flavors of security in between. And unless otherwise noted, every app here works with WebDAV, which does everything FTP can do on an HTTP-centric Web server. When an app supports cloud services beyond those basics, we'll let you know.

Free FTP apps

You can find several FTP apps for a cool zero dollars. They don't tend to be as feature-rich as the paid apps we'll discuss later, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're a poor choice.

Mac OS X's built-in FTP capabilities

Let's just say there's a reason people make, sell, and use third-party apps. Technically, you can use the Finder's Go > Connect to Server… command to log into FTP or SFTP servers. But in my tests, this ran relatively slowly, and I could download files but not upload them. Unless you're desperate, consider other options.

FileZilla (The FileZilla Project, filezilla-project.org)

FileZilla is an open-source, cross-platform app, and that means exactly what you think it does: a boxy, utilitarian, non-Mac-like interface designed by professional programmers, for professional programmers. Getting around FileZilla may be rational, but it isn't pretty.

The program works admirably fast when uploading or downloading your files, but that's about all it has in its favor. It won't remember your server passwords from one session to the next, which can be a real pain with a long, complex password. And its ridiculous update system, which downloads an entirely new copy of the app, then obliges you to copy it manually into the Applications folder every time a new version rolls out, would be less obnoxious if it didn't seem to roll out new updates every five minutes. Skip it.

Cyberduck (iterate GMBH, cyberduck.io)

This veteran contender boasts crazy fast file transfers and an impressive roster of cloud service options: Amazon S3, Google Drive, Google Cloud Storage, Azure, Backblaze, Dropbox, OneDrive, and DRACOON. It also offers the ability to synch up a local and remote directory, a powerful feature more often found in paid apps. But it loses points for a dated, unattractive interface – including when synching – and for its baffling decision to use a single-pane layout.

Rather than use two panes — one showing a folder on your local computer, the other showing the remote directory to which you've connected, so that you can easily drag and drop files between the two – Cyberduck's single pane obliges you to drag files to and from a separate Finder window, a needless bit of extra hassle.

And while the program's technically free, it'll nag you to pay up often, and charges App Store downloaders a lot more ($24) than it does folks who purchase a registration key on its own site (a minimum donation of $10). If you're going to pay for an FTP client, you have better choices than this one.

ViperFTP Lite (Naarak-Studio, viperftp.com)

This isn't one of those better choices I mentioned above. The opening screen for this junior version of a fuller-featured app features a cheesy come-on for both its paid big sibling and a selection of other low-rent apps from the same company. Any bad vibes you get from that welcome quickly multiply once you're in the app itself.

I give ViperFTP Lite credit for incorporating Amazon S3 and, uniquely, YouTube in its list of connection options. But the interface is a dud, transfers feel sluggish, and in my tests, the app once crashed entirely while trying to open a new connection.

ForkLift 2 (BinaryNights, binarynights.com)

ForkLift's creators are giving version 2 away for free on the App Store to promote their newer version 3, which we'll get to later in this roundup. But version 2's nothing to sneeze at. It offers respectable (though not amazing) transfer speeds, and a clean, Mac-like interface I found intuitive and appealing. In addition to the usual FTP and WebDAV options, ForkLift can connect to Amazon S3, AFP, and SMB servers.

You definitely get what you pay for: Neither ForkLift version will remember your server passwords or store them in the Keychain, and in ForkLift 2, Droplets — a mini-app that lets you transfer files to a specific destination just by dragging and dropping files onto it, without opening ForkLift itself – just didn't seem to work. Still, if you need a free app simply to move files to and from an FTP server, you could do a whole lot worse than this.

Paid Apps

If you actually shell out money for a file-transfer app, expect fancier features such as more connection options, droplets, and sophisticated synch abilities. But while on average, paid apps work better than free ones, some are far more worth paying for than others.

Commander One / CloudMounter ($30/$45 each, Eltima Software, mac.eltima.com)

If you imagine a typical file-transfer app as the center point on a spectrum, then Commander One would exist way over on the 'MORE' side of that line, and CloudMounter far in the opposite direction on the 'LESS.' Both let you move files to and from remote servers, but CloudMounter pares down that process to its simplest form, whereas Commander One piles on features for power users. Each is available for $30 on its own, or with a 'lifetime upgrade guarantee' for a total of $45.

You can download Commander One for free as a file manager and replacement for the Finder, with potent searching and sorting powers. Paying up for its 'Pro Pack' adds FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Dropbox, Amazon S3, OneDrive, and Google Drive connections, among other advanced features.

But while it's written entirely in Swift for maximum Mac-friendliness, Commander One suffers from an interface that's more or less intuitive, but too crowded and boxy to appeal to most users. I also found its transfer speeds middling at best. Its file-transfer features aren't worth paying for unless you really love using the app as a file manager as well.

If you want to try before you buy, make up your mind quickly; my promised 15 days of free access to the Pro features somehow elapsed in less than five.

I mostly praised CloudMounter when I previously reviewed it, and an unobtrusive app that easily mounts remote drives directly in the Finder remains a great idea. But the more I used CloudMounter after my initial tests, the more its connection problems shifted from 'occasional' to 'frequent,' especially when I tried to access an SFTP server.

When I revisited it for this roundup, it bogged down and hung on a simple SFTP transfer that every other app handled with aplomb, and its connections tended to crawl under the best circumstances. It also lacks any of the sophisticated search or synch features other paid apps, including Commander One, offer.

And if you get it from the App Store instead of Eltima's site, you're stuck with in-app purchase options that turn it into a subscription product, charging $29.99 a year or $9.99 for three months. Despite its broad range of connection capabilities – Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, OneDrive, OpenStack Swift, Backblaze, and Box – I can no longer recommend it in its current form.

Yummy FTP Pro ($30, Yummy Software, yummysoftware.com)

Yummy FTP Pro offers a well-built but way-too-basic FTP client. Files transfer speedily, the app performs reliably, and the interface looks clean, if a tad crowded. Its synch features offer plenty of power and options, but they're not particularly intuitive. And Yummy FTP Pro can only connect to FTP, SFTP, and WebDAV.

If it were free, I'd embrace Yummy FTP Pro in a heartbeat. But even its Lite version costs $10, and at $30 for Pro, you have better options for your money.

A note to App Store users: The version of Yummy FTP Pro available here is older than the one on Yummy Software's site, and sells for $15.

ForkLift 3 ($30, BinaryNights, binarynights.com)

ForkLift 2's big sibling soared over my initial low expectations, with features and overall quality that seriously contend for first place in this roundup. I liked the crisp, logical, Finder-like interface, which tries to keep options and icons to a minimum.

Its respectable suite of file systems include Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Dropbox (through the Finder, if you've already installed the Dropbox app), Google Drive, Rackspace CloudFiles, and – unlike most other apps here – SMB, AFP, and NFS. If you install the free, open-source Mac FUSE software, you can even mount any of these remote drives in the Finder.

A nifty little menubar icon enables remote mounting, along with a cool 'synclet' feature that lets you drag files directly into a pop-up window to upload them without opening the app – no Droplet icon or other shenanigans necessary.

ForkLift also quietly doubles as a file manager – one that looks and feels a lot friendlier to average users than Commander One does. Unique among the apps discussed here, ForkLift 3 can preview and play video files and edit text and HTML files directly within the app. It can even compare the contents of two files or images (though depending on which method you use, you may need to install Apple's Xcode developer tools to enable that).

ForkLift 3 may fall just short of my top choice here, but it's an excellent app nonetheless, and a terrific value for the money.

Transmit ($45, Panic Software, panic.com)

The big kahuna of Mac file transfer apps does nearly everything you've read about above, with a level of polish and user-friendliness that justify a price tag half again as high as any other app on this list.

I liked its clean, simple interface – though I'll confess that it took me longer than expected to figure out how everything worked. Connecting to a server caused me no trouble, but I struggled to determine just where and how I could add a connection to my Favorites, or turn it into a Droplet.

But that minor headache was the only one Transmit gave me. Every other facet of this app has been honed until it gleams. Transmit boasts tons of features yet never seems overwhelming, in part thanks to Panic's excellent, searchable, plain-English text files.

The app brims with clever features such as DockSend; specify a folder in the Finder and a remote server directory, and when you drag any file from that Finder folder to Transmit's icon in the Dock, it'll automatically get whisked to the right remote destination. Those transfers happen at hellacious speeds, too. And its list of compatible cloud services can't be beat: Amazon S3, Amazon Drive, Backblaze, Box, DreamObjects, Dropbox, Google Drive, Azure, OneDrive/For Business, OpenStack Swift, and Rackspace Cloud Files.

The designers seem to have thought long and hard about how actual humans would use Transmit. For example, the app doesn't just tell you that you'll need to install FUSE to enable desktop mounting of remote disks; it links you to a crystal-clear set of instructions on Panic's site that will walk you through the whole process.

And I absolutely loved Transmit's super-intuitive synch interface, which doesn't just offer abundant options, but also summarizes your choices in plain English sentences before you commit to them – a courtesy that saved me from making at least one thunderously dumb mistake in my testing.

In short, Transmit earns its sterling reputation, and then some.

Note to App Store users: Transmit 5 is available here as a free download with a $25 annual subscription price. Visit Panic's site for a one-time $45 purchase.

The winner's circle

Among paid apps, Transmit stands head and shoulders above the rest. If you're in a cash crunch, though, ForkLift 3 offers most of Transmit's finer points at two-thirds of its cost. And if you just need a free, simple way to move files from point A to point B, ForkLift 2 beats all contenders in its class.

Got a file-transfer favorite we overlooked here? Connect with us and upload your thoughts in the comments below.

The Mac lineup

Main

We may earn a commission for purchases using our links. Learn more.

Breaking: More Twitter account features disable due to crypto hack

Verified and non-verified Twitter accounts are having some features disabled, including the ability to tweet. Twitter is recommending resetting your password.