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Let Your Fingers Do the Tracking
I used to prefer trackballs over using a mouse but when Apple came out with useful trackpads I was hooked. I use a Magic Trackpad 2 on my home office set-ups and also at the office.
A trackpad is not a mouse. In some ways, that’s obvious—you swipe your fingers on it, rather than dragging it around. Less obvious, however, are the many gestures that make using a trackpad on your Mac faster and, I think, more fun. These gestures aren’t limited to laptop users thanks to Apple’s Magic Trackpad 2, which brings gesturing goodness to any desktop Mac. Emily talked a bit a few weeks ago about the trackpad, but I think she omitted some important features beyond the traditional two and four finger swipes.
Three Fingers on the Trackpad
What if you swipe vertically with three fingers? Swipe up to enter the All Windows view of Mission Control, which shows all open windows as thumbnails, plus desktop spaces in the top bar. Click any thumbnail to switch to it, or jump to any space by clicking it. You can also click the plus button at the upper right or drag any window into the top bar to create a new space. To move a space’s apps back to the current space, hover over a space on the top bar and click the close button that appears. To exit All Windows view, swipe down with three fingers.
If you haven’t invoked All Windows view, swiping down with three fingers instead invokes App Exposé view, which displays thumbnails of all open windows in the current app. Click any one to switch to it. Swipe right or left with three fingers while in App Exposé to switch between apps.
Here’s another one that I use every day – three-finger drag. Here’s how to turn on three finger drag if your Mac has a Force Touch trackpad or you are using the Apple Magic Trackpad 2:
#From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
#Click the Accessibility icon.
#Choose Mouse & Trackpad from the options on the left.
#Click Trackpad Options.
#Place a checkmark next to “Enable dragging.”
#From the related pop-up menu, choose “three finger drag” so there’s a checkmark next to it.
#Click OK.
Finally, on older MacBooks that don’t have Force Touch-capable trackpads, tap with three fingers on words to look them up, on files to preview them with Quick Look, and more. With newer MacBooks, if you have “Force Click and haptic feedback” enabled in System Preferences > Trackpad > Point & Click, you can instead “force click” with one finger for these features. That involves clicking on something and then pressing firmly without letting up.
Two Fingers on the Trackpad
The two-fingered gestures are easy to get your head around. You might be surprised what else you can do with two finger swipes.
In Safari, swipe left on a page to go back in that tab’s page history or right to go forward. Also in Safari, tap two fingers on the trackpad to zoom in on the content. Another two-fingered tap zooms back out.
In Photos, and some graphics apps, zoom in and out by pinching with two fingers, and rotate selected objects by putting two fingers on the trackpad and turning them. A two-finger pinch also zooms the page in Safari.
To open Notification Center quickly, swipe left from off the right-hand edge of your trackpad. Swipe back to the right to close Notification Center.
Changing Your Preferences
If you need a refresher on all these gestures, open System Preferences > Trackpad. Look in the Point & Click, Scroll & Zoom, and More Gestures panes to see a handy video for each gesture. You can also adjust which ones are active and how many fingers they require.
With so many gestures on offer, it’s worth your time to explore everything you can do with your trackpad. You are likely to discover something you didn’t know about, even if you have been a user for years.