Drag a file to the top of the screen to share it, on a Mac

Updated 2026-09-11 · 4 min read · by Okie Dockie

The Windows 11 gesture

On Windows 11 you pick up a file and drag it towards the top of the screen. A tray drops down with places to send it, you drop it on one, and you are done. No menus, no app switching, no thinking about where the file is.

It is a small thing that turns out to be used constantly — screenshots to a colleague, a PDF to a chat, an image into a document.

What macOS offers instead

The Mac has the pieces but not the gesture. Right-click a file in Finder, find Share in the context menu, and a submenu lists Mail, Messages, AirDrop, Notes and any app that ships a Share Extension. It works. It is also three levels of menu, and only from Finder.

There is no way to reach it while dragging, which is the natural moment — you have already picked the file up.

Adding the gesture

Okie Dockie brings the Windows behaviour over unchanged:

1. Pick up a file — from Finder, the Desktop, a Mail attachment, anywhere that supports dragging.
2. Drag towards the top of the screen. A tray of destinations slides down.
3. Drop on one.

The tray is built the moment you pick the file up, from what macOS says can handle that particular kind of file, so it is never a stale list. It is part of the free version.

Which apps appear

Two sources. First, whatever macOS itself offers for that file type — the same list as Finder's Share menu, which you control in System Settings → Login Items & Extensions → Sharing. Any app that ships a Share Extension shows up automatically: Mail, Messages, AirDrop, Notes, Reminders, Photos, Freeform, and third-party apps that register one.

Second, four apps that ship no share extension at all but that everybody wants anyway: WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack and Discord. Okie Dockie reaches those directly, so they appear in the tray alongside the native destinations.

If an app you expect is missing, it almost certainly has no Share Extension — check the Sharing list in System Settings, since macOS lets you switch individual destinations off and people often have without remembering.

Which file types work

Any file. Images, PDFs, text, documents, archives, video — the tray adapts to what you picked up, because different destinations accept different things. Photos will take an image and not a ZIP; Mail will take anything. You see the destinations that actually apply rather than a fixed list with half of it greyed out.

The gesture pairs with snap layouts, which use the same drag-to-the-top idea for windows — drag a window up for layouts, drag a file up for sharing.