Would you be open to bringing three-finger drag into Microsoft PowerToys?

[MasaYan24]

Hi Clément,

First of all, thank you for ThreeFingerDragOnWindows — I use it daily and it's
the single feature I miss most when moving between macOS and Windows.

I'm a PowerToys contributor (a few merged PRs in the Keyboard Manager module),
and I'd like to propose three-finger drag as a built-in PowerToys utility.
Before doing anything on the PowerToys side, I wanted to ask you first, because
this is your work and your idea, and I don't want to go around you.

Some context: the feature has been requested in PowerToys repeatedly since 2021
(microsoft/PowerToys#14525, microsoft/PowerToys#17898, microsoft/PowerToys#19923,
microsoft/PowerToys#36929, microsoft/PowerToys#38368, microsoft/PowerToys#47603)
and is still unimplemented.
Your project is MIT-licensed and written in C#/WinUI 3, which is the same stack
PowerToys uses, so it is by far the best starting point that exists.

I can see a few ways this could go, and I'd rather you pick:

1. You drive it. I help with the PowerToys-specific plumbing (module interface,
   Settings UI, installer, GPO, telemetry, localization) and review.
2. We do it together as co-authors on the PR.
3. You give your blessing and I do the work, with clear attribution to you and
   to this repository in the PR, in the issue, and in PowerToys' NOTICE.md.

To be clear about what this would and wouldn't mean:

• Your project stays yours; nothing here asks you to archive or change it.
• PowerToys modules aren't standalone apps, so this would be a port/rewrite into
  their module architecture rather than a copy of the app — but the core input
  handling logic and design are yours, and I'd keep the attribution explicit.
• Microsoft requires a CLA for contributions. If you'd prefer to author or
  co-author the PR, you'd sign it yourself; if I do the work, I'd declare the
  third-party MIT provenance to the maintainers up front.
• There is no guarantee the PowerToys team accepts a new utility. I'd open the
  discussion with them first and only start implementation once they green-light
  it.

If you'd rather this didn't happen at all, that's a completely fine answer and
I'll drop it. Please let me know what you'd prefer.

Thanks again for the tool.

[ClementGre]

Hi @MasaYan24,

As I said in microsoft/PowerToys#14525 (comment), I would love to see the Three Finger Drag feature to be added to PowerToys.

I think the best way would be for us to do it together and co-author the PR, though I will not be available for this until the end of December 2026. This should leave us some time to confirm everything with the PowerToys team.

Some things to take into account :

• TFDOW relies on a handler window and some tricky user32.dll calls to get the Raw Input feed (see HandlerWindow.xaml.cs and Interop.cs). Since the stack is the same, it should work, but it is worth checking.
• TFDOW does not work on all touchpads. Raw Inputs vary between touchpads, and some touchpads send inaccurate payloads. Hence the number of issues in this repo. I’ve done the best I could to support tricky touchpads, but there will always be edge cases. Adding TFD to PowerToys may expose it to a broader community allowing to fix even more of these issues.

[MasaYan24]

Thanks Clément, that's great news — and co-authoring is exactly what I was
hoping for.

End of December 2026 works well. I'll use the time until then to get a decision
out of the PowerToys team, since that's the real gate here: they have closed
every previous three-finger-drag request (#14525 was duped onto #4484, which is
actually about launching PowerToys Run with a gesture; #17898 and #36929 were
redirected to the Feedback Hub; #19923 and #38368 were closed at triage). The
stated objection back in 2021 was that there is no API PowerToys could hook
into and that it looked too hardware-dependent — TFDOW is the direct
counter-example to that, so I'll lead with it.

Plan on my side, no work needed from you until you're back:

1. Open a proposal issue on microsoft/PowerToys framed as an implementation
   offer from the two of us, quoting your reply here, and asking whether they
   want a standalone utility or something folded into a broader touchpad
   utility (Touchpad gesture customization and enhancement utility microsoft/PowerToys#47603 is the only open one in this area).
2. If they're interested, write a spec/dev doc against their
   doc/devdocs/development/new-powertoy.md and get it reviewed.
3. Implementation only after a green light — with you as co-author from January.

Noted on both technical points, and they're going straight into the proposal:

• The handler window + user32.dll Raw Input path (HandlerWindow.xaml.cs,
  Interop.cs). PowerToys modules aren't standalone WinUI apps, so the message
  loop / window ownership is the part I most expect to need rework; I'll verify
  it early rather than assume it carries over.
• Touchpads that report inaccurate payloads. I'd rather be upfront with the
  team that this cannot be made universal, and design for it explicitly — a
  detection step and an honest "your touchpad doesn't report usable data"
  state, instead of a feature that silently does nothing on some hardware. You
  are right that the larger user base could turn those into fixable reports,
  but I don't want it to land as a surprise for the maintainers.

Unless you'd rather I hold off, I'm opening that proposal issue today rather
than waiting until January — you pointed to the team confirmation as the thing
to do while you're away, and triage over there is slow enough that starting the
clock now costs us nothing. I'll link it here as soon as it's up.

It quotes your reply above verbatim rather than paraphrasing you, and commits
you to nothing beyond the January co-authoring you offered. If there's anything
you'd have phrased differently — especially how I describe the touchpad
compatibility limits — say so here or on that issue and I'll correct it right
away. Thanks again.

[MasaYan24]

Proposal is up: microsoft/PowerToys#50482 — no rush to respond, but please correct me there if I've misrepresented anything about TFDOW or about what you've agreed to.

[ClementGre]

That’s all good for me, thank you !