KDE Single Mouse Click Activates Folder/File - Stop it

I had been perplexed to find the setting to turn off the default single mouse/touch pad activation of a file and/or folder in Dolphin for sometime. This seemed to have changed in 2022 - I had noticed it with Manjaro and EndeavourOS. I couldn’t get an Internet or system search hit on this until someone mentioned online about Desktop Behavior, on an Arch post for Gnome. Desktop Behavior, of course, is not found in KDE.

For KDE:
Go into System Settings> Workspace Behavior> General Behavior> “Clicking files or folders”.
Change from Opens them to be Selects them

  • Or search for behavior in the System Settings search window.
  • Use “behavior” and not behaviour for non-American friends.

Enjoy the single mouse click again.

It is actually on the starting page of system-settings. You don’t have to dig down into those settings to find it.

Since it is frequently changed, they include it in the quick settings.

1 Like

At least they tried :sweat_smile:

Yeah…it’s there like you said. For me, it obviously wasn’t…obvious.

It is actually filed under “Workspace Behavior”, for me on EndeavourOS, Manjaro and Nutyx which have the latest releases of Plasma. This is annoying because this “tab” is kept separate from “Appearance” category usually listed first. See screenshot provided by @dalto.

EDIT: Reading the first post of this topic again, it indicates that the single-click-on-desktop behavior should be allowed only in “live ISO” mode. However some people actually expect it like that when the system is installed, and for a touchpad. Not like some of us like me who are clumsy and could easily trigger a “click” to start something not wanted. Not just bad links posted on some web page…

The left mouse button of my laptop’s touchpad is about to die, so I should just allow tap to click. But it’s a gesture I was never comfortable with. It looks silly and I feel silly doing it, so there.

Now I don’t remember but KDE aren’t the only ones that force single-click touchpad behavior like that. Anything that relies on OpenBox, at least three that I’ve tried so far, in order Slackel, Bunsen Labs Beryllium and NomadBSD. For the latter, right button click on taskbar button closes the app, ugh, could never get used to that.