The MacBook trackpad is one of the best on the market, but here’s how to make it better.
Laptop trackpads have always been a bit lacking, but when it comes to the MacBook’s trackpad, it’s one of the best. The glass surface makes it easy to swipe your fingers, and the large surface area it occupies gives users plenty of room to navigate.
Also, Apple has further enhanced the trackpad with the release of the 2015 MacBooks, which now come with Force Touch, which is similar to the display technology in the Apple Watch.
It’s essentially pressure sensitive, so you can tap the trackpad to complete an action and then press harder to complete a different action. For example, you can hard press an address in the Mail app to get a location, or use it in the Finder to preview a folder’s contents.
That’s great and all, but you can make the trackpad even better by customizing what different taps and clicks do. Apple doesn’t let you do this out of the box, but you’ll be well on your way with some third-party software.
Here’s how to customize the MacBook trackpad and optimize it for your own needs and uses.
The Mac app we’re going to use to customize the MacBook trackpad is called BetterTouchTool. We’ve discussed this piece of software before, but it essentially lets you set up different types of macros. For example, you can set a three-finger tap to act like a middle mouse click to open a new tab, which is my personal favorite customization.
But first, we need to download BetterTouchTool and install it so you can start customizing your MacBook’s trackpad. Just go to the BetterTouchTool website and download the app by scrolling down a bit and clicking the blue button that says.
After installing and opening the tool, you will be asked if you want to enable window capture, which allows you to quickly switch windows to full screen by dragging the window to the top of the screen. You can read our guide to learn more about it.
Next, you need to give BetterTouchTool access to OS X’s accessibility features by going into BetterTouchTool and placing a checkmark next to BetterTouchTool. After that, you’re good to go and you can start configuring BetterTouchTool.
When you run the tool you will see a sidebar on the left where you can add specific apps for trackpad gestures to work and simply click on the bottom right to add a new gesture. If you want the gesture to work everywhere, make sure to select it in the left sidebar.
Click the icon just below and you will have options to adjust the motion. Below, you can choose the type of gesture you want, such as a three-finger tap or even a four-finger tap, but there are loads of other options to choose from.
To the right of this, you can enter the keyboard shortcut you want executed when performing the touchpad gesture, or select a predefined action. After that, the gesture will be ready for use and will be saved automatically.
There are loads of possibilities when it comes to BetterTouchTool and this is a Reddit thread includes several ways other users can benefit from the software.
BetterTouchTool also works with your Magic Mouse, Apple Remote, and even your keyboard so you can set up custom keyboard shortcuts.
