CUT AND PASTE NOT WORKING BETWEEN FILES

Question

TRYING TO COPY AND PASTE FROM ONE FOLDER TO ANOTHER TEXT FOLDER - WILL NOT

WORK.

Answer 1

Welcome Richard Salisbury,

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A forum.  

I understand that cut or copy and paste is not working when moving files between folders in Windows 11. 

To help resolve this as quickly as possible, could you please confirm the following details:  

• Are you trying to move files within the same drive or between different drives such as an internal drive and an external USB drive? 
• Does the issue occur only in File Explorer, or does it also happen when copying files using another method such as drag and drop? 

In the meantime, you can try these steps: 

Option 1: Restart Windows Explorer 

• Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager 
• Select Windows Explorer 
• Click Restart 

Option 2: Check clipboard service status 

• Press Windows key + R, type services.msc, and press Enter 
• Locate Clipboard User Service 
• Make sure the status is Running 

Option 3: Try an alternative copy method 

• Select the file 
• Press Ctrl + X to cut or Ctrl + C to copy 
• Navigate to the destination folder 
• Press Ctrl + V to paste 

Option 4: Test with a new local user account 

• Create a new local user account 
• Sign in to that account 
• Try copying and pasting the same files 

Option 5: Check disk errors 

• Open Command Prompt (admin) by searching on Start menu 
• Type chkdsk /f and press Enter 
• Restart the PC if prompted 

I really hope that the information I gave above was helpful to you. Please feel free to reply below and let me know if you have further concern on this matter.    

---

P.S: If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".     

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.