DropAndDrag

A lightweight drag-and-drop shelf. Drop files, folders, images, text, and URLs — pick them up anywhere. macOS + Linux.

• Shake while dragging a file to open the shelf and drop it inside
• Drag items out to any app or folder
• Cmd+Click to select multiple items and drag them all at once
• Shelf hides while you drag out, reappears when the drag ends
• Always on top, never steals focus

Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tigranadamyan/DropAndDrag/main/install.sh | bash

That is the whole thing — it fetches the latest release, installs it, and launches it. No password, no Terminal gymnastics, about 15 seconds.

To read the script before running it (always reasonable for anything piped to a shell):

curl -fsSL -o install.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tigranadamyan/DropAndDrag/main/install.sh
less install.sh && bash install.sh

Re-running the command later upgrades an existing install, and does nothing if you already have the newest version. Pass a version to pin one: bash install.sh 1.0.15.

Homebrew

brew tap tigranadamyan/tap
brew trust tigranadamyan/tap
brew install --cask dropanddrag

brew trust is required because Homebrew refuses to load casks from third-party taps otherwise. Upgrades come through brew upgrade --cask dropanddrag.

Manual download — works, but macOS gets in the way

DropAndDrag-1.0.15-macOS.dmg

DropAndDrag is signed ad-hoc rather than with a paid Apple Developer ID, so it is not notarised. Your browser stamps every download with com.apple.quarantine, and Gatekeeper refuses to open a quarantined app that Apple has not notarised — you get "DropAndDrag cannot be opened" with no obvious way past it.

If you go this route:

1. Open the DMG and drag DropAndDrag.app to Applications
2. Try to open it — it will be blocked
3. System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, click Open Anyway
4. Confirm

The install command above avoids all of this: curl does not set the quarantine attribute, so there is nothing for Gatekeeper to block.

After installing

Shake-to-open needs one permission: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility → enable DropAndDrag. The app picks it up on its own, no restart needed.

Updating replaces the app's signature, so macOS drops that permission and asks again after each update. That is a consequence of ad-hoc signing and will stop once the app is signed with a Developer ID.

Features

• Drop anything — files, folders, images, plain text, URLs
• Real icons — file icons via system API, image thumbnails via QuickLook, favicons for URLs
• Multi-select — Cmd+Click tiles to select multiple items; drag them all out at once
• Auto-sizing — shelf grows as you add items, resets when cleared
• Shake-to-open — shake the mouse while dragging a file to summon the shelf near the cursor; ignored when the shelf is already visible
• System tray — Show/Hide and Quit from the menu bar icon
• Persistent settings — window position and preferences saved to disk
• Zero telemetry — no network access, no cloud, everything stays local

How it works

1. Drag a file (or text, URL, image) onto the shelf — it appears as a tile with its real icon
2. Keep working. The shelf floats above all windows and never steals focus
3. When you're ready, drag the tile to its destination
4. The shelf hides while you drag out so it doesn't obstruct the drop target, then reappears automatically
5. To move the shelf, drag its background. To bring it back when hidden, shake the mouse while dragging a file

Technical details

| | Detail | |---|---|---| | Language | C++23 (ObjC++ on macOS, Xlib on Linux) | | Rendering | macOS: AppKit/CoreGraphics · Linux: Xlib + freedesktop icon themes | | Thumbnails | macOS: QLThumbnailGenerator · Linux: stb_image | | File icons | macOS: NSWorkspace iconForFile: · Linux: freedesktop icon theme lookup | | Drag-out | macOS: NSDraggingSource · Linux: XDnD source protocol | | Drag-in | macOS: NSDraggingDestination · Linux: XDnD target protocol | | Settings | JSON file in ~/Library/Application Support/DropAndDrag (macOS) or ~/.config/dropanddrag (Linux) | | Binary size | ~1 MB (macOS) | | Platforms | macOS 13+ · Linux (X11 + XWayland) |

Building from source

macOS

Prerequisites

• macOS 13+, Xcode Command Line Tools
• CMake 3.25+, Ninja
• SQLite3 (system)

Quick build

git clone https://github.com/tigranadamyan/DropAndDrag.git
cd DropAndDrag
./build.sh

Or step by step:

cmake -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build
open build/DropAndDrag.app

Linux

Prerequisites

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install cmake ninja-build pkg-config \
  libx11-dev libxi-dev libxrender-dev libxext-dev libxtst-dev \
  wayland-protocols libwayland-dev libgl1-mesa-dev zlib1g-dev

# Fedora
sudo dnf install cmake ninja-build pkg-config \
  libX11-devel libXi-devel libXrender-devel libXext-devel libXtst-devel \
  wayland-protocols wayland-devel mesa-libGL-devel zlib-devel

# Arch
sudo pacman -S cmake ninja pkgconf libx11 libxi libxrender libxext libxtst \
  wayland wayland-protocols mesa zlib

For real file icons (not colored fallback tiles), install an icon theme:

sudo apt install adwaita-icon-theme    # Debian/Ubuntu
sudo dnf install adwaita-icon-theme    # Fedora
sudo pacman -S adwaita-icon-theme      # Arch

Build

git clone https://github.com/tigranadamyan/DropAndDrag.git
cd DropAndDrag
./build_linux.sh
./build/DropAndDrag

Build options

Option	Default	Description
DROPANDDRAG_BUILD_TESTS	ON	Build unit tests
DROPANDDRAG_ENABLE_SANITIZERS	ON	ASan/UBSan in debug builds
DROPANDDRAG_ENABLE_LTO	ON	Link-time optimization in release

Running tests

cmake --build build && cd build && ctest --output-on-failure

Architecture

src/
├── core/              # Platform-independent: Item model, Database, EventBus, Settings
├── platform/          # Abstract interfaces: NativeWindow, DragDrop, Hotkeys, Tray
├── ui/                # Shelf rendering, item icons, layout
│   ├── renderer.mm    #   macOS: AppKit/CoreGraphics rendering
│   └── ui_linux.cpp   #   Linux: Xlib rendering + freedesktop icon theme
├── platform_impl/
│   ├── macos/         # Cocoa implementation (.mm)
│   ├── windows/       # Win32 implementation
│   └── linux/         # X11/Xdnd/XEMBED/inotify implementation
└── app/               # Application lifecycle, event loop, signal handling

• Main thread — Event loop + rendering
• Linux rendering — Xlib via dedicated Display connection (ui_linux.cpp)

Linux architecture

Where everything lives

Component	File	What it does
Window + events	src/platform_impl/linux/window_linux.cpp	X11 native window, XDnD target/source, keyboard, mouse
Drag-out	src/platform_impl/linux/window_linux.cpp	XDnD source protocol: findXdndWindow, sendXdndDropToTarget, handleSelectionRequestOut
Drag-in	src/platform_impl/linux/window_linux.cpp	XDndHandler class — XdndEnter/Position/Drop/Leave
Mouse monitor	src/platform_impl/linux/mouse_monitor_linux.cpp	XRecord + Wayland relative pointer + /dev/input/mice fallback
Shake detector	src/core/mouse_shake/mouse_shake_detector.cpp	Platform-agnostic algorithm
Shelf rendering	src/ui/ui_linux.cpp	Xlib drawing, freedesktop icon lookup, stb_image thumbnails
Icon loading	src/ui/ui_linux.cpp	find_icon_named — theme search, load_icon_pixmap — Pixmap cache
stb_image	src/vendor/stb_image.h	Single-header PNG/JPEG/BMP/GIF loader
Clipboard	src/platform_impl/linux/clipboard_linux.cpp	X11 selections (CLIPBOARD, PRIMARY)
File monitor	src/platform_impl/linux/file_monitor_linux.cpp	inotify watcher with debounce
Hotkeys	src/platform_impl/linux/hotkeys_linux.cpp	XGrabKey with NumLock/CapsLock variants
System tray	src/platform_impl/linux/tray_linux.cpp	XEMBED protocol, notify-send fallback
Notifications	src/platform_impl/linux/notifications_linux.cpp	DBus notifications
Event loop	src/app/application.cpp:561	run_linux_loop() — 4ms tick
Build script	build_linux.sh	Dependency check + configure + build

Drag-out pipeline

ButtonPress on tile → hitTestItem (window coords → item index)
MotionNotify > 5px → beginItemDrag
  ├── XSetSelectionOwner (XdndSelection)
  ├── XChangeProperty (text/uri-list with file://path)
  ├── XGrabPointer (track all motion)
  ├── set_drag_out_active(true) — blocks shake detector
  └── hide() — shelf disappears
MotionNotify (during drag) → tracks root_x,root_y
ButtonRelease → completeItemDrag
  ├── XUngrabPointer
  ├── findXdndWindow (XTranslateCoordinates → top-level windows → XdndAware check)
  ├── sendXdndDropToTarget (XdndEnter → XdndPosition → XdndDrop)
  ├── Wait for SelectionRequest → serve file:// URI
  ├── Wait for XdndFinished
  ├── set_drag_out_active(false)
  └── show() — shelf reappears

Freedesktop icon loading

Item.path → stat() (folder?) → is_image_ext? (thumbnail) → ext_to_mime → mime_to_icon_names
  → find_icon_named (search /usr/share/icons/{Adwaita,hicolor,gnome,…}/{48x48,scalable,…}/{mimetypes,places,…})
  → stbi_load → downscale_rgba → composite_rgba → XCreateImage → XPutImage → Pixmap cache
  → XCopyArea (each render frame)
Fallback: colored tile with letter (F=file, D=folder, I=image, U=URL, T=text)

Mouse monitoring on Linux

The shake detector needs global mouse tracking across all applications. On Linux, three backends are tried in order:

1. Wayland zwp_relative_pointer_manager_v1 — broadcasts relative motion to all clients regardless of focus. Works over Wayland-native windows (Nautilus GTK4, etc.).
2. X11 XRecord extension — captures MotionNotify events from the X server wire protocol. Needs libxtst-dev. Works on X11 + XWayland.
3. /dev/input/mice PS/2 protocol — reads raw 3-byte packets. Legacy fallback, often empty on evdev systems.
4. XQueryPointer — absolute position polling every 4ms. Last resort.

Known Linux limitations

• Wayland drag-out: XDnD only reaches X11/XWayland windows. Dragging to Wayland-native apps (e.g., Nautilus on pure Wayland) requires compositor-level protocol implementation.
• System tray: XEMBED is deprecated on modern desktops. Falls back to notify-send when no tray is running. AppIndicator/KStatusNotifierItem not yet implemented.
• File icons: Requires an icon theme package (adwaita-icon-theme or similar). Without it, falls back to colored tiles.
• Image thumbnails: QuickLook-equivalent (thumbnailing server) not implemented. Image files show as thumbnails using stb_image; PDF/video show MIME-type icon.
• Multi-select: Cmd+Click not yet implemented on Linux (only single-item drag-out).

License

MIT © DropAndDrag contributors

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_{Built with C++23 · AppKit · SQLite3 · CMake}