Disclosed are various approaches for using drag-and-drop to open local files remotely. In one approach, a client device renders a user interface including a first indicium corresponding to a local file of the client device and a second indicium corresponding to a remotely executed application. A drag-and-drop action of the first indicium relative to the second indicium is detected. Responsive to the drag-and-drop action, the remotely executed application opens a copy of the local file.