Quick Guide on Using 21 Touchpad Tricks in Handling your Windows or Mac Laptops to Perfection

Would you like to use your touchpad like a pro?

If so, you’ve come to the right place. 

Each operating system has its own gestures, which run in a similar way but are not necessarily identical. In addition, each touchpad has a different size and sensitivity. It is an element that is not usually given much attention when buying a laptop. However, it will mark the user experience for good or force you to use an external mouse.

Here, I will show you the touchpad tricks for the Windows laptops and Mac laptops separately. Check out the tricks list below.

Touchpad Gestures for Windows 10

Let’s see a list of the main gestures you can perform with Windows 10:

• Click with a finger: execute the normal mouse click. Perhaps it is the best known by most users.
• Pulsation with two fingers: runs the right mouse click, very useful and unknown by most.
• Pressing with three fingers: Cortana opens. Something very useful to quickly access your files and programs.
• Four-finger tapping: Opens the notification center that Microsoft increasingly attaches importance to.
• Double click with one finger: Double-click.

Touchpad Gestures for Windows 11

You can perform all of these gestures on the touchscreen of your windows 11 laptop. Just make sure you enable these touch gestures in the settings. Follow the navigational path below to turn touch gestures on: 

Start > Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Touch > Three and four-finger touch gestures

Make sure the Three and four-finger touch gestures option is turned ON. Please note when you enable the touch gestures, the three and four-finger interactions in some of your apps may not work properly. If you want to continue using these interactions, you have to turn OFF this setting again.  

Windows 11 Touch Gestures

Let’s now see a list of all the gestures you can do with windows 11

• Select an item: Just tap the screen on top of the item
• Scroll through the feed: Place your two fingers on the screen and slide them vertically or horizontally
• Zoom in or zoom out: Place two of your fingers on the screen and pinch in or out
• Show more commands (such as right-click properties): Press and hold the item on the screen
• Show all open windows: Swipe with three fingers up on the display
• See the desktop: Swipe with three fingers down on the display
• Open the last app:  Swipe with three fingers to the right or left
• Switch between desktops: Swipe with four fingers to the right- or left-hand side of the display
• Open notifications center: Swipe with your one finger in from the right-hand edge of the display
• Open widgets: Swipe with one finger in from the left-hand edge of the display

Windows 11 Touchpad Gestures 

Let’s now see a list of all the gestures you can do on the Touchpad of your Windows 11 laptop. 

Note: Some of these touchpad gestures will only work with precision touchpads. To find out whether your laptop has a precision laptop, follow the navigational path below: 

Start > Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Touchpad

• Select an item: Just tap the Touchpad 
• Scroll: Place your two fingers on the Touchpad and slide vertically or horizontally
• Zoom in or Zoom Out: Place your two fingers on the Touchpad and pinch it in or out
• Show more commands (Such as right-clicking): Tap the Touchpad with the help of your two fingers gesture or just press down in the lower right corner of the Touchpad.
• Show all open windows: Swipe with your three fingers gestures up on the Touchpad.
• Switch between apps/windows: Swipe with the help of three fingers to gesture left or right.
• Switch desktops: Swipe left or right with the help of your four fingers

Touchpad Gestures Not Working on Windows 10/11

In case the Synaptics or Touchpad isn’t working on your Windows 10 or 11 machines, try the following solutions. 

1. Update, Rollback, or Re-install the Drivers

There can be countless instances of drivers becoming incompatible with the OS or corrupting. Therefore, whenever you face such a situation, the first thing to check is the drivers. If the driver has become outdated, you may have to update it. If the problem arose after you updated your drivers, you have to roll back the installation. And if that doesn’t fix the issue, you may have to uninstall and reinstall the latest version of the driver. 

2. Enable Touchpad function from the config utility

Sometimes the touchpad installation drivers come with a touchpad configuration utility. In such instances, there are chances that the configuration may have been modified. In this case, simply open the configuration utility and reset the Touchpad settings back to default. 

3. Enable Touchpad from the hardware key

Some laptops and computers come with a special hardware key. If you accidentally press that key, it can disable the Touchpad. Look for the hardware key on your machine. It will have a touchpad icon on top. Press it again to re-enable the Touchpad. 

4. Run Hardware Troubleshooter/Diagnostics

You can fix any hardware or device issues with the help of a hardware troubleshooter. It will automatically detect if the Touchpad has some hardware issue and fix it promptly. 

Multi-Touch Gestures on Your Mac

If you have a multi-touch trackpad, you can tap, pinch, spread, or swipe with one or more fingers to perform some quick actions. These are: 

• Tap to click: You can tap with one finger to click
• Secondary Click: You can click or tap with the help of two fingers to right-click
• Smart Zoom feature: Double-tap with your two fingers forward or backward to zoom in or zoom out
• Scroll: You can slide two of your fingers up or down in order to scroll a page
• Zoom in or out: Like a smartphone, pinch with two fingers to zoom in or out
• Rotate a photo: Move two of your fingers around to rotate the items
• Swipe between two pages: You can swipe left or right with the help of your two fingers to show the next or previous page
• Open the Notification Center: Swipe left on the Touchpad from the right edge with the help of two fingers to see the Notification Center.
• Three Fingers Drag: You can use your three fingers to drag any item on your display, then tap to drop (You have to turn on this feature in the Accessibility preferences settings first). 
• Swipe between full-screen apps: Swipe left or right with the help of your four fingers to move between full-screen apps. 
• Open Mission Control: You can open Mission Control by swiping up with four fingers

How to Use Your Android or iPhone as a PC Mouse, Keyboard, Trackpad

• Double click with a finger and drag: select text within the application in which we are.
• Swipe with two fingers up or down: another of the best-known moves you up and down, with the same effect as the mouse wheel.
• Swipe three fingers up: open the task view and sliding three fingers down, navigate between open ones to select the one we want.
• Slide three fingers down: Displays the desktop and hides the windows. If we then do the opposite action, the windows reappear.
• Swipe three fingers to the right or left: navigate between open windows
• Pinch with two fingers: zoom in or out. A well-known gesture on tablets and mobiles and not so much on the touchpad of laptops.

Touchpad technology matters

Many of the gestures explained, especially those with three and four fingers will surely not work on older equipment. It is necessary to have Precision Touchpad technology, which was launched at the end of 2013  next to Windows 8.1. The older notebooks, which upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7, may not be able to use them.

In addition, in many cases and depending on the model, the touchpad can be accompanied by one or two buttons. This was more common in older models since as you have seen, most actions are now done directly from the touchpad through the gestures. It is preferred to increase the surface of the said element even at the expense of removing the buttons.

Other manufacturers, such as the Lenovo case, bet on complementing with its famous TrackPoint, the red dot in the middle of the keyboard that until the arrival of the touchpad with multitouch technology was the most efficient to work fast on the laptop. If you also use keyboard shortcuts, productivity goes off.

There are also a lot of keyboards with a built-in touchpad, a very comfortable option for use in computers connected to the TV, for example, so you can control them comfortably from the sofa.

Mouse Gestures for Mac

In the case of Mac laptops, since the arrival of the MacBook Pro Retina 13 inches have available Force Touch technology. Thanks to it they are able to distinguish the pressure differences that we apply in each touch to carry out different actions.

Some of the main gestures that take advantage of this feature that you have at your disposal are the following:

• Pressure on a text: A popup appears that shows search results for that text. Very useful for accessing dictionaries, etc.
• Pressure on an address: it will show a preview of it on maps.
• Pressure on an event or appointment: it will automatically add it to your calendar.
• Press on the trackpad over a link: it will show a preview of the page. The preview also appears if you press and hold the icon for a file.
• Pressure on the name of a file: allows you to edit it to change it, the equivalent of F2 in Windows.

The 5 Best Wireless Bluetooth Mouse for Mac

• Pressure on an area of a map: create a marker on it.
• Two touches without being clicked: also used to zoom. The pinch also works as a gesture for this same action.
• Sliding two fingers: from page to page.
• Move with three fingers: this allows you to pick up and move any window as if it were pressed.
• Swipe two fingers from the edge of the trackpad: It opens the notification center. To close it is necessary to make the opposite gesture.

Not all the gestures will be activated. If you see any of the gesture is not working properly, you should check the configuration from the system preferences by searching for the trackpad. In addition, they can also be used on desktop computers with Apple Magic Trackpad.

These are the 21 touchpad tricks of both Windows and Mac laptops. I hope this article will help you to use your system with a touchpad like a pro. If you are facing any difficulties in applying any of the gestures, let us know in the comment section below. We will get back to you as soon as possible to solve all your queries.
Would you like to add any other touchpad tricks to this article? Then write them in the below comment box and we will include them in this article.

Out of Trackpad and mouse, which one do you use more?

 

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