I regularly do this to be honest. I drag the file to my home or Dropbox folder and dive from there. I also regularly drag and drop files from finder to any other application, not just three folders, but three desktops away. It might not be OK or comfortable for you (which I understand), but writing with laser-cut assumptions and prejudice doesn't help.
> I just checked, it's always greyed out on my finder. Who knows why, it's probably intuitive.
If you're in list view, you can always click column headers, just like a particular Redmond OS allows to do. Also there's a sort by menu, which is operational in all views as I just checked. I think again a particular Redmond OS also calls this strange and magical ordering process the same.
macOS works differently, and it goes against some conventions on other OSes, I know. However, I don't get agitated by this, because how it's evolved and it's consistent in its own world. I actually like how it doesn't imitate anything else. It's same for Linux. Again backwards in some parts, but consistent in its universe of things.
The funny thing is, I booted my Windows disk this weekend for steam stuff and for keeping the OS up to date, and a lot of things felt backwards. However, this is again consistent in Windows universe and it's OK.
Again, I want to reiterate that, there's no one-and-only-one correct way to do things. We need to embrace this differences. This is what moves UI/UX research forward. I personally don't whine. Just adapt and love how quirky a UI is. If it's that broken, I patch it, or just submit bug reports.
No, I mentioned old UNIXen, Linux, and other OSes on my other comments. I do not bring them to table since Linux and other UNIXen Desktop Environments are much more flexible and can be customized to much greater extent, so if something feels wrong, it can be modified easily.
I put Windows vs. macOS because they're arguably the most popular consumer OSes on the market right now. Personally I don't use Windows unless I want to play some games (which happens twice a year at most) or need to manage my parents' computers.
I probably came accross as a macOS fanboy, but I'm actually not (honestly sorry about that). I just like the philosophy behind it and how fast and efficiently can work on that. I can work as efficiently on Linux too (and it's my primary OS on my workstations for ~20 years or so).
The thing I don't agree is labeling of any system of being incapable of something while it's certainly capable but this capability is built with a different design/philosophy and works somewhat differently. If these comments were about Windows, I'd be defending it and its heritage. If it was about Linux, I would certainly do the same with the same enthusiasm.
At the end of the day, it's not fanboyism about and OS, but a rather sympathy for the machine. Understanding how its innards work with as a result of different thinking and how one needs to be flexible and needs to look a little differently to the matter at hand, which is a very useful trait to have.
I love Apple products and to be honest I generally like macOS too but these responses are ridiculous.
Try making this trick work when your destination is three levels deep into a different hierarchy. Oh yes, you should have thought about it beforehand and opened two windows and pre-arranged them in a way so you can drag from one to another, because it's so intuitive! And yes, the metaphor of "take from one place, drop into other", which worked with documents, is completely broken, but somehow we pretend it still exists. And the worst thing - there's no reason for it to be this broken. It just is.
> It's called "Clean Up By". Available in right click menu and in the top menu probably.
I just checked, it's always greyed out on my finder. Who knows why, it's probably intuitive.
> Or just press back. It's parent folder 99% of the time.
Except no, it's the folder which you saw before that, which doesn't have to be parent at all.