Make your Mac laptop’s trackpad work the way YOU want

Updated June 25th, 2024.

Every Mac laptop’s trackpad comes pre-configured exactly the same way– that is, Apple’s way. That’s not necessarily your way, and out of the box it’s much too easy to trigger trackpad actions accidentally. Here’s how to configure your Mac’s trackpad so it works the way you want it to.

(This article also applies to add-on Apple trackpads that you may be using with a desktop Mac.)

All of the trackpad settings are found in System Settings/Trackpad. (Note: screenshots are from macOS Sonoma.)

The Mac trackpad settings are split into three sections, which shows you just how many settings there are! Let’s take the sections one at a time. Within each section, I’ll explain what each setting does, and give you my recommendation for it. The goal is to make your trackpad work predictably, without things jumping around and popping open and doing things you don’t expect, when all you want to do is point and click.

We’ll start with the Point & Click section.

Starting at the top:

1. Tracking speed controls how quickly the cursor moves when you drag a finger around on the trackpad. Too fast and the cursor’s a squirrel on caffeine. Too slow and it takes forever to move it. Experiment here and find what works for you. Tip: a little bit faster cuts down on the amount of time spent dragging your fingers around on the trackpad surface.
2. Click controls how hard you have to press to register a click. If you find you’re accidentally clicking, you probably should make it harder to click. On the other hand, if clicking takes too much effort, or if clicking doesn’t seem to register every time, you should probably make it easier to click.
3. Force Click and haptic feedback are supposed to be useful– they “do something” when you press extra hard– but in real life they just make it feel as if your trackpad is broken. If you click on something, and then it feels as if you’ve somehow fallen off a cliff, that’s Force Click for you. The haptic feedback is the little “bump” that comes along with the Force Click. Over and over, when I show this setting to people they turn it off and thank me. Typically they say “I hated that feature!” I’ll bet you do too, and now you can turn it off.
4. Look up & data detectors automatically looks up words that you tap on with three fingers. It’s actually kind of handy, but most people trigger this accidentally, throwing them off. My recommendation: turn it on, try tapping on a word with three fingers, and see how it works for you. If it doesn’t look like something you’ll use, turn it off.
5. Secondary click is the Mac version of the famous “right click” of the PC world. A secondary click produces a “contextual menu” of options that are appropriate for the thing you clicked on. For example, if you secondary click on a word, you might get options for looking up the word’s definition, doing a spelling check, adding bold or italic to the word, etc. If you secondary click on a picture, you might get options for adding the picture to Photos, or for sharing via Messages or Mail, or for using the image as your desktop photo. Sounds good, yes? Yes– but it’s far too easy to do a secondary click accidentally. My advice: turn this OFF, and use the Control-click method (hold either Control key and then click) to bring up the contextual menu.
6. Tap to click is an option I actually like! It works just the way it sounds: you don’t have to press down to click, you just have to tap. This saves wear and tear on your finger and helps prevent finger fatigue. I recommend you try this one.

Let’s move to the Scroll & Zoom section.

Let’s take it from the top:

1. Natural scrolling switches the way things scroll. When Natural Scrolling is off, dragging down on the trackpad takes you further down in the document. That makes sense. But… if you think about the document, it is actually moving up (revealing more of the document further down). We all used it this way for years, until Apple added the Natural Scrolling option. Personally, I leave it off. Do what feels best to you.
2. Zoom in or out lets you do the two-finger “pinch” and “reverse pinch” that you’re probably used to doing on an iPhone. It doesn’t work everywhere (same as on the iPhone) but it generally does if you’re looking at a picture, so I leave it on. Pinch-zooming is not a move you are likely to do by accident so there’s not much chance of things zooming in and out by mistake.
3. Smart zoom sounds “smart” but as it’s easy to do by accident I leave this one off.
4. Rotate is not something I need so I leave this one off too. If I ever do need to rotate something (an image) I’ll be doing it in an app like Preview or Pixelmator, which each have better, more precise controls for this.

Let’s have a look at the More Gestures section.

I appreciate all of these features and controls, but I don’t like triggering things by mistake, and the More Gestures section is where most of the accidental triggers come from. You can save yourself some reading by just turning everything in More Gestures off. Read on for some explanation.

1. Swipe between pages is for when you’re using Safari and you want to go back (or forward) a page. I want to like this one but when I turn it on I end up switching pages by mistake all the time. So then I turn it off, until I someday feel adventurous again.
2. Swipe between full-screen applications does what it sounds like, so it’s more like an iPad, but I prefer to use ⌘-Tab to switch apps, so it’s more like a Mac. This one stays off.
3. Notification Center is another one of those things you’re likely to trigger accidentally. If it’s not on, try turning it on, and the put two fingers at the right edge of the trackpad and drag them to the left. There’s your Notification Center. If you like that, great. I turn that off, and use the “click on the clock in the menubar” to bring up the Notification Center. Yes, that’s a weird way to do it, but the advantage is I won’t do it accidentally.
4. Mission Control is actually rather handy and I think I might start using it again. A three-finger up-swipe reveals EVERY window that you have open (and you can click on whichever window you want to bring to the front). I usually switch apps with ⌘-Tab but this way we see windows, not just apps. Give it a try and see for yourself. (I don’t like seeing all the clutter, which is why I haven’t been using Mission Control, but I’m starting to think it’s worth it.)
5. App Exposé is another handy one that you’re not likely to trigger accidentally (it’s either a three-finger down-swipe or a four-finger down-swipe). What it does is show you every window for the app you’re currently using. If you’ve ever tried to find an email that you started to write, or a web page that you know is open, App Exposé is for you. Make it the opposite of the Mission Control shortcut so it’s easy to remember. As with Mission Control, I don’t like seeing the clutter, but there’s some value in this, so I am going to leave this one on.
6. Launchpad brings up the Launchpad, just what you’d expect, and that could be handy, except the move “pinch with thumb and three fingers” is too close to the three-finger down-swipe for App Exposé, so I leave this one off. Remember, you have a Launchpad icon in the Dock by default, so you’ll still be able to use it, even with this option off.
7. Show Desktop does what it says– it shows the desktop. At least it’s supposed to. I find the “spread with thumb and three fingers” to be really hard to do, so I don’t use this.

And that’s it! A full tour of the Trackpad settings, with recommendations. I’ll bet you can turn almost every Trackpad option off and not miss them, AND get more predictable behavior from your Mac as you won’t be triggering things by accident. Start with everything off and gradually add things in, one at a time, until you have the settings exactly right. Remember that what’s right for me isn’t necessarily right for you.

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