Cannot Select Individual Layers in a Group Folder with Control+Left Mouse Click

[Jakkal]

I am using Photoshop 25.3.1 on Windows 11

It used to be if you wanted a quick way to select a layer, you could hold control and left mouse click on the layer.  This works unless you put the layer in a group folder.

Once you put your layers in a group folder, it's selecting the folder and not the layers. I tried to find this in the keyboard shortcuts, preferences to see if this was something I could change, but I couldn't find it. If anyone knows of a way to fix this, please let me know.

Right now it just seems like the default behavior has changed to select the folder and not the layer.

[Jakkal]

I forgot to mention that this is for clicking on the actual image, and not the layers list.

[Jakkal]

Reply #2. After more messing around, I found on the top bar there's an "Auto Select: Dropdown" option and it had group set. I changed it to Layer and turned auto select on. But that selected the layers by just clicking on them. 

I switched to the paintbrush and then back, and now it works as intended. So I'm not sure what I did there, but that seems to have done the trick? Still seems weird. Now it's set off and when I hold down shift, it temporarily turns on Auto-Select. But whatever it works as I expect it to.

I should have mentioned that I have a new computer and I'm still going through the settings to set it up like my old computer and this might have been one of them.

[mglush]

Yes!

You found the answer to your question. The Group option was selected in the Options bar instead of layer. Good job! Thanks for sharing your issue and it's resolution.

Michelle