HOW TO Enhance your trackpad’s behaviours

1 Pick a trackpad gesture

We’ll first define a gesture to take a screenshot – which you can’t do in System Preferences’ Trackpad pane. Click Add New Gesture. In the Touchpad Gesture pop-up, pick TipTap Right from the Three Finger Gestures category.

2 Choose an action

From the Predefined Action pop-up, pick Capture Screenshot (Configurable) under Screenshots. Click Capture Whole Screen(s) and, if you wish, remove the underscores and {random} from the name and adjust the save destination.

3 TipTap screenshots

Click Save to confirm. Now you can try out your gesture. Rest two fingers on the trackpad and then tap with a third to their right. If all was set correctly (see above), a screenshot will be saved to the location you specified during step 2.

4 Move a window

We’ll now create a gesture to snap a window to half of the screen. For the gesture, use 5 Finger Swipe Right (you’ll find it in Five And More Finger Gestures); set the action to Maximise Window Right from the Windows Resize & Move group. 5 Duplicate a rule Select step 4’s gesture. Copy it with

and paste it with You can now select and edit the duplicate. Below the Touchpad Gesture pop-up, tick From the Predefined Action pop-up, pick ‘Resize window to Right Third’.

6 Test your gestures

Open a Finder window. Perform a five-finger rightwards swipe and the window will resize to fill the right half of the screen – but only the right third if

is held. Think about ways to expand on these shortcuts to suit how you work.

7 Trigger the app switcher

Use a gesture to bring up macOS’s app switcher, without your fingers having to leave your trackpad. Set up a gesture that uses ‘3 Finger Double Tap’ to invoke the Application Switcher action (from the OS X Functionality category).

8 Replace Hot Corners

You can use macOS’s Hot Corners feature to activate the screensaver, but it’s quicker to click your trackpad than move the pointer to a corner. In a new gesture, select Corner Click Bottom Left from the Single Finger Gestures category.

9 Stop accidental usage

In the OS X Functionality group, pick Start Screen Saver (or Lock Screen from System Actions). To avoid triggering in error, tick one of the modifier key boxes, such as If your Mac has a Force Touch trackpad, consider a Force Click gesture.