Eventually i have a little bit differemt case: i was trying to add gesture recognizer for a child view inside a NSTableCellView inside NSOutlineView :). It seems that in this case NSOutlineView(which is a descendant os NSTableView) "block" events propagation. I found that there is a function to override: validateProposedFirstResponder and return true for a responder which should be able to receive events. Documentation (https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/TableView/RowSelection/RowSelection.html#:~:text=Specifying%20How%20Subviews%20Should%20Respond%20to%20Events)

Also i believe in your case the lene for an action registered should be different: clickRecognizer.action = #selector(clickRecognizer)

I have similar issue. Trying to add gesture recognizer to a static NSTextField which is created in code.