Windows Forms: Drag and drop image from one PictureBox to another PictureBox in C#

To create a simple application on how to use c# drag and drop image to picturebox, you can drag a PictureBox control from the Visual Studio toolbox into your form designer, then design a simple UI to help you drag and drop image to the PictureBox in c# as shown below.

Adding a Form_Load event handler to your form that allows you to initialize the PictureBox controls.

private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    pictureBox1.AllowDrop = true;
    pictureBox2.AllowDrop = true;
}

Next, Add the DragDrop event handler to the PictureBox1 allows you to drag drop an image file to the PictureBox control as the following c# code.

private void pictureBox1_DragDrop(object sender, DragEventArgs e)
{
    var data = e.Data.GetData(DataFormats.FileDrop);
    if (data != null)
    {
        var fileNames = data as string[];
        if (fileNames.Length > 0)
            pictureBox1.Image = Image.FromFile(fileNames[0]);
    }
}

And don't forget to add the DragEnter event handler to the PictureBox1 allows you to copy an image.

private void pictureBox1_DragEnter(object sender, DragEventArgs e)
{
    e.Effect = DragDropEffects.Copy;
}

Adding the MouseDown event handler to the PictureBox1 to perform image copying.

private void pictureBox1_MouseDown(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.Button == MouseButtons.Left)
        pictureBox1.DoDragDrop(pictureBox1.Image, DragDropEffects.Copy);
}

Adding the DragEnter to the PictureBox2 allows you to copy an image.

private void pictureBox2_DragEnter(object sender, DragEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.Data.GetDataPresent(DataFormats.Bitmap) && (e.AllowedEffect & DragDropEffects.Copy) != 0)
        e.Effect = DragDropEffects.Copy;
    else
        e.Effect = DragDropEffects.None;
}

Finally, Add the DragDrop event handler to the PictureBox2 to allows you to copy an image from clipboard as the following c# code.

private void pictureBox2_DragDrop(object sender, DragEventArgs e)
{
    pictureBox2.Image = (Bitmap)e.Data.GetData(DataFormats.Bitmap, true);
}

Press F5 to run your project, then drag and drop image to PictureBox1. Next, you can drag and drop the image from PictureBox1 to PictureBox2.

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