1948388 - Dragging images from google images to some other applications (like Photoshop CC and Preview) doesn't work (or drags a URI)

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core :: Widget, defect, P3)

Description

[Emilio Cobos Álvarez [:emilio]]

See: https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1ipcfqs/drag_and_drop_into_adobe_photoshop_cc_issue/

This might or might not be the same as bug 652197, so filing a new bug since that one doesn't have much relevant context.

Things that are interesting to test:

• Try to reproduce it (I don't have Photoshop so something that I could test would be appreciated).
• Might be a regression, would be worth to run mozregression on it.
• Dragging from the actual image document (so, open image in new tab then drag).
• Might be bug 1437126 (does it happen with dom.events.dataTransfer.imageAsFile.enabled=true?)

At a glance, the same thing seems to work in Windows (though I dropped into MS Paint rather than Photoshop so could be related to how Photoshop reads the drag data).

Cc'ing some relevant folks (apart of the CC list from bug 652197).

Comment 1

[Emilio Cobos Álvarez [:emilio]]

Ah, bug 652197 comment 16 says this also repros in Preview. So that should be testable.

Comment 2

[Tom S. (please needinfo tschuster)]

I can reproduce this issue using Preview. Dropping an image from Firefox onto the Preview produces the error "This file can't be found". Dragging the same image in Safari and dropping on the Preview app in the dock works.

Might be bug 1437126 (does it happen with dom.events.dataTransfer.imageAsFile.enabled=true?)

This makes no difference. The pref is purely related to images when dragging inside Firefox.

Comment 3

[James Graham [:jgraham]]

This seems to affect other desktop OSes.

Comment 4

[jscher2000]

This seems to affect other desktop OSes.

On Windows, if I drag a JPEG or PNG from Firefox to an image editor such as Photoshop Elements or Windows Paint, the receiving program shows a random-looking file name with a .bmp extension. This could be related to how Firefox populates the image onto the clipboard(?) -- i.e., bitmap data only, not the actual file? -- or it could be caused by a preference of Windows or the receiving program to paste/transfer the bitmap data rather than the file.

(I have Windows set to show common file extensions, in case that makes any difference. MSKB)

(I opened the image editors first and dropped into the document area. Windows does not allow dropping images on Taskbar buttons, which I guess would be the closest thing to the Mac OS dock.)

Comment 5

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:spohl, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 6

[Edgar Chen [:edgar]]

For macOS, this might be related to bug 1802163.

Comment 7

[Stephen A Pohl [:spohl]]

(In reply to Edgar Chen [:edgar] from comment #6)

For macOS, this might be related to bug 1802163.

Bug 1802163 is now fixed and will be available in the next Nightly. Could someone confirm that this is now working in Photoshop on macOS?

It isn't clear to me how this problem was visible in Preview since the main area of Preview doesn't seem to support dropping of images. However, if this is referring to the sidebar for example, I was able to confirm that this now works as expected. Tom, could you clarify and/or verify?

(In reply to James Graham [:jgraham] from comment #3)

This seems to affect other desktop OSes.

If this bug is confirmed to be fixed for macOS, I'm tempted to change this bug to be macOS-specific and close it, or change it to a meta bug.

(In reply to jscher2000 from comment #4)

This seems to affect other desktop OSes.

On Windows, if I drag a JPEG or PNG from Firefox to an image editor such as Photoshop Elements or Windows Paint, the receiving program shows a random-looking file name with a .bmp extension.

Does Windows still show this issue? If so, I'll open a Windows-specific bug.

Comment 8

[jscher2000]

(In reply to Stephen A Pohl [:spohl] from comment #7)

(In reply to jscher2000 from comment #4)

On Windows, if I drag a JPEG or PNG from Firefox to an image editor such as Photoshop Elements or Windows Paint, the receiving program shows a random-looking file name with a .bmp extension.

Does Windows still show this issue? If so, I'll open a Windows-specific bug.

Good news: I can't replicate this in Photoshop Elements or in Windows Paint with either Nightly or Release.

Comment 9

[Tom Schuster (MoCo)]

It isn't clear to me how this problem was visible in Preview since the main area of Preview doesn't seem to support dropping of images. However, if this is referring to the sidebar for example, I was able to confirm that this now works as expected. Tom, could you clarify and/or verify?

It's now possible to drag an image from Firefox onto the Preview icon in the Dock, afterwards Preview will open and display the image. Previously this would produce an error: "The file can't be found".

Comment 10

[Stephen A Pohl [:spohl]]

Thank you. I'm going to close this bug for now.

Comment 11

[Calin Tanase]

Verified, the issue is still reproducible with both RC 143 and Nightly 144.

Tested with:

• Browser / Version: Firefox 143.0-candidate build 1 / Nightly 144.0a1 (2025-09-11) / Chrome 140
• Operating System: MacOS Sequoia 15.6.1

The image opens in Safari when dragging an image from google into "Preview", on Chrome it works as expected.

Screen rec: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Bc8ceUxK94WjNvfin1UXnU1gGiD_nUnN/view?usp=sharing

Comment 12

[Stephen A Pohl [:spohl]]

(In reply to Calin Tanase from comment #11)

Verified, the issue is still reproducible with both RC 143 and Nightly 144.

Tested with:

• Browser / Version: Firefox 143.0-candidate build 1 / Nightly 144.0a1 (2025-09-11) / Chrome 140
• Operating System: MacOS Sequoia 15.6.1

The image opens in Safari when dragging an image from google into "Preview", on Chrome it works as expected.

Screen rec: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Bc8ceUxK94WjNvfin1UXnU1gGiD_nUnN/view?usp=sharing

This test is not quite testing the same thing as what was reported in this bug: by dragging an image from a Google image search (as in the video) we are actually dragging a lot more than just "an image" to Preview: The object also includes link information etc. While it can still be considered a bug that dragging from a Google image search is not working yet, this should be considered a subset of this bug and addressed in a followup.

Could you please retest by dragging an image directly? For example, open https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/PNG_transparency_demonstration_1.png and drag it into Preview? If this works for you, let's open a separate bug to tackle the Google image search scenario.

Comment 13

[Calin Tanase]

Attachment: drag and drop wiki image from Nightly to Preview app.mov

I get the same behavior as described in my previous comment.

Note: In Freeform app, it seems to work fine

Comment 14

[Stephen A Pohl [:spohl]]

Apologies for the delay here. I was finally able to figure out that this was originally fixed when the patch in bug 1802163 landed. However, it was later regressed by my fix for bug 1985538. I'm going to close this bug here and open a new bug to track a fix that doesn't regress bug 1985538.

Comment 15

[Calin Tanase]

Verified, the issue no longer reproduces.

Tested with:

• Browser / Version: Firefox 145.0-candidate build 2
• Operating System: Mac OS Sequoia 15.6.1