Idea: Add Drag And Drop in OBS Sources

Darketernal

New Member
So, at this moment, let's say you have a picture that you want to add to your sources in OBS, you can't just easily drag n drop it, you have to select from folder, go to the exact location and it's quite a pain that could be prevented if you could just drop media files in the sources that you want to add. I'm not sure why this hasn't been added yet, since it would make life so much easier.
 
Works for me. Pretty much exactly as you describe. Drag a JPG (I had one handy) from the OS-native file browser into OBS, and drop it in the Sources dock. Now I have an Image source with that file. OBS 30.2.3 on Ubuntu Studio 22.04 LTS.

I seem to remember it working on Windows 10 too, but I'm a bit foggy on that. I replaced that rig with Ubuntu Studio 24.04 LTS.
 
2026 and it's still not working for me, albeit i'm using windows 10, and with all the commercials and flaws on windows 11 atm, i'm not so willing to switch.
 
...with all the commercials and flaws on windows 11 atm, i'm not so willing to switch.
Kind of a yank to the steering wheel, but would you consider dumping Micro$haft and their Windblows altogether? (I grew up on Windows, and I still say that!)

Win10 is not getting security patches, so whatever vulnerabilities it still has will not be fixed (there are *always* vulnerabilities in everything), so it's only a matter of time before someone finds a good one and M$ uses it as an ultimatum to adopt their new spyware/adware. The sooner you jump, the better you'll be at the alternative you've chosen by the time that happens.

Personally, I like Ubuntu Studio. It has all the community support of Ubuntu, which is a LOT - probably the most of any - and it comes with a TON of media- and creativity-related apps preinstalled and already working, including OBS, so you don't have to mess with that from the get-go when you still know next to nothing. Learn to use what's already there, and grow from that.

I stick with the LTS versions (Long-Term Support) for my rigs, which come out in April of each even-numbered year, and are supported for 3 years instead of the 9 months that the in-between releases are. Makes things more stable that way.

And I don't upgrade in-place. Yes, there's a tool to do that, but it's harder to reverse than if I buy a new drive, swap physically, install fresh, and then rebuild what I actually need by then, which is not everything. If something goes wrong, or if I need something to work NOW, I can physically swap back, and it's like I never touched it in all that time. Do remember to disable Secure Boot or whatever your BIOS calls it, so that it doesn't reject the old drive after installing to the new one. Yes, you're disabling "security features", but remember WHO it's designed to be secure for... (it's not you)

Anyway, the current LTS is 24.04, and the next one is 26.04. But I'd still wait until at least the first point release (26.04.1, for example) to switch to the next LTS, so they can address whatever bugs still remain. Remember that there's still a year left in the old LTS when the new LTS first comes out, so there's no rush.

If you're hesitant, put it on a "toy" computer (that's still enough to keep up with your tests, like one that's famously just fine but "can't run Windows 11"), or dual boot, or use a virtual machine. It may be possible for M$ to try and disable some of those options in the future, which would leave you with only the scary option of destroying everything you have before you can even try something else at all...in which case I'd DEFINITELY say DO IT!!!! Flip off the people holding you hostage...

With their recent shenanigans, Microsoft has quickly become one of the best advertisements for desktop Linux there ever was...
 
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You cannot drag and drop between different user contexts (e.g. if OBS is running as admin, so must Explorer).
Windoze has long been famous for having broken permissions, that require bypassing to make things work. ("Just run it as admin, it'll be fine!") Yet another reason I'd give for switching to something that has always had permissions from the start and not as an afterthought, and so they actually *work*!

No need to run anything as root (rough equivalent of admin), except for *actual* system administration, and in fact it's a big scary deal when someone does run something as root because it's so rare and unprotected.
 
As someone who worked with NT permissions since the mid '90s (and at one time worked global enterprise datacenter/server admin), I put the issue more on user education/expectation, than OS _most_ of the time (excluding the every other desktop OS release screwups M$ is famous for). I haven't run as a local admin on personal computer since Windows 2000. I find *nix based permissions limiting (therefore frustrating and annoying), until one got to NIS+ ..

I am only just starting to use Win11... and keeping most of my instances on 24H2 for the moment.
And Win10 still gets updates just fine when I signed up for Extended Security Updates (ESU)... I've had a few OS instances (House of worship unmanaged systems with uneducated users that made a bit of a mess of things) that took a little beating to get the OS to comply (resistance is futile)... but ALL of Win10 systems I've touched are getting updates just fine... until this Oct 2026.

I'll be converting my pre TPM2 system to Linux cuz it is time to start playing with Home Assistant and some other fun home networking projects. My challenge (education) will be setting up SAMBA or similar
 
I put the issue more on user education/expectation, than OS _most_ of the time
And vendor instructions that explicitly say to run their thing as admin, including OBS on Windows...

Doesn't really matter if it's vendor laziness, or corporate greed to price the smaller vendors out of the "correct" way to do things, or corporate oversight to not allow a user to "just do <this>" that by itself has no security implications at all, but may inherit some because of an internal design mistake that won't be fixed because management has bigger fish to fry. Regardless of how it happens, the end result is still overly elevated permissions as normal operation.

Linux at least has a mechanism to surgically carve out exactly what's needed and no more, because overly elevated permissions is such a big deal, and that can be part of an installation script. The script itself, of course, requires elevated permissions (or better, only specific commands within that script), but then the thing being installed, doesn't.

In Windows, as far as a non-technical user is concerned, "just run everything as admin." It's by far the least friction way to "make it work".

Win10 still gets updates just fine when I signed up for Extended Security Updates (ESU)...
Most people aren't going to pay again for what they've already had for free, or already paid in full for in some cases. This "bait-and-switch", or converting what was always a one-and-done product into a subscription, is exactly one of the reasons that people are ditching the corporate giant after decades of using their product exclusively.

I've had a few OS instances (House of worship unmanaged systems with uneducated users that made a bit of a mess of things) that took a little beating to get the OS to comply (resistance is futile)...
How much of that is caused by Windows being either too permissive, or too locked down with a too-accessible binary override?

Originally, Windows was for a single user that was assumed to know what he was doing (single specific pronoun to also reflect the culture of that time), and so there were no restrictions at all. In today's terms, it was effectively full-admin, all the time, for everything. Tech's playground, but to a muggle's perspective, it had a mind of its own because someone else could easily get in there and commandeer it, and because muggles famously forget what they changed and effectively expect all of those controls to do nothing...when in fact every one of them costs something and therefore exists for a reason, just like the knobs and faders on an audio console.

Microsoft did recognize that and try to fix it, but the underlying structure was already established and so whatever they did had to be an afterthought on top of fundamentally wide-open permissions. The ripples from that are still strong, like upper atmospheric effects as far east as Appalachia, caused by the Rocky Mountains.

UNIX, and everything based on it, had detailed permissions from the start, so it and its descendants don't have that problem...except for users who never had to understand it and are now learning late.

I'll be converting my pre TPM2 system to Linux cuz it is time to start playing with Home Assistant and some other fun home networking projects. My challenge (education) will be setting up SAMBA or similar
Great! More power to ya! By the way, Ubuntu Studio (mentioned above) has SAMBA sharing already there...

But, I've settled on SFTP instead of SAMBA. Even with a Windows machine still in the mix (not for much longer, but still there now), the free FileZilla makes that work. For UStudio at least, the file browser understands SFTP natively, and so it works almost like a local folder.

sudo apt install ssh, if it's not there already (some distros do already have it) and now you're a server. Clients log in as any local user, and their actions are policed and logged as that user.
 
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Ok - so WAY off topic....

And vendor instructions that explicitly say to run their thing as admin, including OBS on Windows...
Running OBS Studio with local Admin in Windows is, to my understanding, a work-around for a resource constrained system and GPU scheduling when using GPU for both game render and video encoding/decoding. How much of that is poorly written coconsumer GPU drivers, and how much is OS level?

I have never run OBS Studio as an admin on Windows, and strongly recommend against it. I understand there are some circumstances where this work-around is required, but I see the suggestion to run OBS as admin to be primarily a lazy one, as determining if that is actually required takes effort.

Regardless of how it happens, the end result is still overly elevated permissions as normal operation.
agreed

Linux at least has a mechanism to surgically carve out exactly what's needed and no more, because overly elevated permissions is such a big deal, and that can be part of an installation script.
Yes to least priviledge, and there are downsides to that. One's I'm comfortable with, but most users aren't. As a society, we struggle to get people to pay attention while driving. Trying to get folks to pay attention while computing? if that is a windmill you wish to chase, have at it ... I'd love to see success in that.. I'm not holding my breath

In Windows, as far as a non-technical user is concerned, "just run everything as admin." It's by far the least friction way to "make it work".
I understand there are those that follow that approach. Personally, I'm offended by the idiocy of such, and my family and friends know if they take that approach, I won't help them with their computer, under any circumstance. period.

Most people aren't going to pay again for what they've already had for free, or already paid in full for in some cases. This "bait-and-switch", or converting what was always a one-and-done product into a subscription, is exactly one of the reasons that people are ditching the corporate giant after decades of using their product exclusively.
Not sure what you are arguing here. As a person with a finance background (before tech), value has always been a priority, so I'm always going to lean towards ownership vs rent/subscription. As for ESU? ESU is free... I didn't pay a penny, nor do anything extra (I didn't follow the minimum requirements that I'm aware of ... I just signed up)

{RE: struggle getting ESU activated}
How much of that is caused by Windows being either too permissive, or too locked down with a too-accessible binary override?
Immature code on M$ part certainly an issue. More than that, apparent sloppy (AI vide coding or whatever) followed by a complete lack of adequate testing...
That and users doing stupid stuff to OS, largely out of ignorance, crating an OS mess (that I would normally refuse to touch.. insist on a wipe and start over. ie users that did whatever to just make it work like they are used to... stupid users trick ... PEBKAC}.

Microsoft did recognize that and try to fix it, but the underlying structure was already established and so whatever they did had to be an afterthought on top of fundamentally wide-open permissions. The ripples from that are still strong, like upper atmospheric effects as far east as Appalachia, caused by the Rocky Mountains.
UNIX, and everything based on it, had detailed permissions from the start, so it and its descendants don't have that problem...except for users who never had to understand it and are now learning late.
I get the sentiment, and in Win2000/XP timeframe, I wouldn't argue too much, with the grafting of DOS/Win98 apps onto WinNT kernel.
But now, no, it has been 25 years (since Win2000, over 30 since WinNT) with permissions. The issue now is almost always (meaning there are exceptions) bad code on developers part, lazy users, or improper hardware for the task at hand. Linux users have to learn the permissions nuances, most Mac and Windows users don't (and won't), and it shows.

What is not worth my personal time is to dive into whether there are registry settings or other at OS layer to enable the GPU scheduling needed for a resource constrained GPU, and not elevate the entire OBS Studio application to having admin rights. In the Server Admin world, years ago, working with MS to enable enforcing such nuanced restrictions was normal. The benefit of working for large global enterprises was when you came across poorly written apps (happened frequently), we could push back and make vendor fix their code (thinking GPU drivers at this point, if that is where the 'issue' resides).
 
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