Word for Mac – Cannot drag-select text with mouse/trackpad

Question

Word for Mac – Cannot drag-select text with mouse

Issue: Office 365 Word on my Mac cannot select text by clicking and dragging with the mouse/trackpad.

When I click and drag over text, nothing gets highlighted. However, other selection methods still work:

• Double-click can select a word.
• Triple-click can select a paragraph.
• Holding Shift and clicking can select text.

The problem only affects the normal click-and-drag text selection behavior. It has been like this for over a year, so it's not a recent issue.

Things I already checked/tried:

• Checked Word Preferences and confirmed that “Drag-and-drop text editing” is enabled.
• Restarted Word and restarted the Mac.
• Tested with new blank Word documents; the issue still happens.
• Confirmed that the issue is only happening in Microsoft Word, not other Mac applications.
• Checked Word settings using defaults read com.microsoft.Word; the preference file exists and Word settings appear normal (according to chatGPT).
• Tried clearing Word cache/container data by moving: ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word out of the Containers folder and reopening Word, but the issue remained.

Additional information:

• Word version: 16.110.2 (Build 26062818)
• macOS version: 15.7.5
• The Word app itself works normally except for drag-selecting text.

Could you please help identify what is causing the drag text selection function to stop working? Thank you!

Answer 1

Hi MmmM,

Based on your sharing, given that the issue has existed for over a year, still persists in the current updated version of Microsoft 365 for Mac (16.110.2 build 26062818 is a June 30, 2026 version) and even after clearing Word cache, the most likely causes remains:

• Issue with Word normal.dotm template
• Conflicts from an add-in like EndNote, Grammarly, etc.
• Corrupted user profile

Therefore, there are some tests I suggest you should try first:

1/ Reset Word template

• If you are currently in Word, press Cmd + Q to completely quit Word
• In Finder, select Go > hold Option and select the new popup Library folder
• Follow this path: Library > Group Containers > UBF8T346G9.Office > User Content > Templates
• Rename Normal.dotm template to something like Normal.dotm.old
• Reopen Word and test drag-selection

2/ Test Word in Safe mode

• This is the fastest way to separate Word itself from third-party background software.
• Please follow the steps in this guidance to open macOS Safe Mode then open Word to test drag-selection

3/ Create a temporary new user account

• Go to System Settings > Users & Groups > Add User
• Create a temporary standard/admin user > sign in > open Word and test drag selection in a new blank document

Please try these steps and let me know how or whether it works. If not, please feel free to reach out again in the comments on this post. I'm happy to assist you further and we can investigate together to find out a solution.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. I'm looking forward to your reply.

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