I'm still not clear what the problem is. Qt::Popup works in such a way that the widget gets hidden regardless where you click if you click outside the widget area and I don't think there is anything you can do about it. The event won't propagate anywhere because the popup widget doesn't have a parent. The only thing you can do is to install the event filter on the popup, detect that the click happens outside the widget area and at that moment post another event to the widget under the cursor, letting the original event close the popup.