Skip to main content
Participant
November 20, 2025
Answered

Critical Issue: Photoshop Tools Switching Back Automatically

  • November 20, 2025
  • 3 replies
  • 313 views
Hi Adobe Team, I’m facing a small but very frustrating glitch in Photoshop, and I wanted to bring it to your attention. Whenever I’m using the Move Tool, and I try to switch to the Brush Tool by pressing B on my keyboard, Photoshop jumps to the Brush Tool for a split second and then immediately switches back to the Move Tool on its own. This keeps happening repeatedly, and only after trying 3–4 times does the tool finally switch properly.
This issue is interrupting my workflow and becomes quite irritating, especially during long design sessions. I kindly request you to please look into this bug or guide me if there’s any fix or setting adjustment I should try from my side.
Correct answer jane-e

@Vikas24983500oth2 wrote:
...or guide me if there’s any fix or setting adjustment I should try from my side.

 

 

This is by design and is a feature, not a bug. I've moved your post from Bugs to Discussions for now.

 

When you press and hold a keyboard shortcut, Photoshop lets you use that tool and then when you let it go,  it reverts to the original tool.

 

One option is to tap the key instead of pressing it. The second option is to go to Preferences and either turn off Spring-loaded tool shortcuts or change the timing.

 

Preferences > Tools > Spring-loaded Tool Shortcuts

 

Jane

3 replies

jmvdigital
Known Participant
May 6, 2026

This happens to me all the time and it drives me absolutely nuts!!! 

Jason2980332354l7
Participant
February 25, 2026

this is the most annoying “feature” ever. thank you for showing me how to disable it.

jane-e
Community Expert
jane-eCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
November 20, 2025

@Vikas24983500oth2 wrote:
...or guide me if there’s any fix or setting adjustment I should try from my side.

 

 

This is by design and is a feature, not a bug. I've moved your post from Bugs to Discussions for now.

 

When you press and hold a keyboard shortcut, Photoshop lets you use that tool and then when you let it go,  it reverts to the original tool.

 

One option is to tap the key instead of pressing it. The second option is to go to Preferences and either turn off Spring-loaded tool shortcuts or change the timing.

 

Preferences > Tools > Spring-loaded Tool Shortcuts

 

Jane

Known Participant
February 26, 2026

No, this is not by design, because it depends on the complexity of the layer composition. On simple files this problem NEVER happens. On complex files it happens very often. And I´ve tried every possible setting for “Timing Sensitivity” and it did not help! This bug was introduced maybe a year ago. It never happened with older PS versions. This is a serious bug, which can ruin your file, because you can move layer content without noticing it.
Imagine you have the move tool active, press B for brushing and start to brush. But PS switches back to the move tool. You have already moved the cursor, because you were sure that the brush tool was active, but PS has already switched back to the move tool. So you may have already moved a layer´s content. Maybe only a few pixels, so you don´t realize that you moved something. This can ruin actually everything in your file, because everything you do later on, builds up on a wrong positioned content. 
I have been working with spring loaded keys since they were introduced many, many years ago. This never happened with older versions.

Known Participant
March 1, 2026

Just another proof that it´s a bug:
If you switch to another tool by shortly pressing a shortcut, it switches back to the original tool after a split second, if you are on a complex file. You could argue that the Timing Sensitivity is set wrong (although I have tested every time setting...).
But if you press the shortcut a second or maybe third time, it does work!
You really need to take that bug for serious, it can ruin your entire image!
@jane-e 
Please move it back to bugs!