Things You Can Do With an Apple Trackpad That You Cant Do With a Mouse

If you use a trackpad with your Mac, whether it is the built-in one on your MacBook or the stand-alone Magic Trackpad, it can do a few more things than an Apple mouse.

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Video Transcript: Things you can do with an Apple Trackpad that you can't do with a mouse. Let's go!
So of course the obvious advantage that an Apple Trackpad has over any mouse is that for most Mac users it is built-in. A majority of Macs sold are MacBook models and these already have the trackpad built right in. You don't have to get anything extra. You don't have to carry anything else with you. That alone has a big advantage. But even if you have a Desktop Mac you can still get the Magic Trackpad from Apple when you buy your Mac or later on. In fact this is what I use and I'm a big fan. If you have never used an Apple Trackpad before, only other trackpads, you're really missing out. This is a precision device that gives you excellent control over the Pointer on your Mac whether you're just moving around in the Finder or you are wanting to put the Pointer in exactly the right spot in a graphics app. 
Now you've got controls for both the trackpad and the mouse in System Settings. If you scroll down you should see Trackpad Settings here if you have a trackpad. Mouse settings here if you have a mouse. If you only have one or the other you won't see the other controls here. I happen to have both connected to my Mac right now which is why I see both. For a Mouse you're just going to see Point & Click and More Gestures. These are the only controls you have. If you go to Trackpad you actually see three sections and each one of them actually has more to it. Let's start by talking about Silent Clicking. 
Now Silent Clicking is an option you'll see only if you have this, an external trackpad. It's not part of the MacBook Trackpad. You can turn this On and then the trackpad is a lot quieter when you click down on it. But for absolutely silent clicking you have options available both on MacBook Trackpads and the stand alone trackpad. That is Tap to Click. If you turn that on you actually don't need to press down on the trackpad, you just need to tap it lightly with your finger. A single little tap is considered a click and it is almost completely silent. 
One thing you can do with Apple Trackpads that you can't do on a mouse is a Forced Click. That's when you press down hard on the trackpad. Now you can use that for Data Detectors. That's when you have a phone number somewhere or it could be a physical address or a date and time. A trackpad allows you to Force Click click and then click harder. Then it brings up this little interface where you can create a Contact Card. Or if you want to Quick Look something you can select the item and then press the Spacebar. You can do that no matter what you've got. But a Force Click on something like this will actually pop it up in Quick Look. Another place you can use this is to look up words. So you can put your Pointer over any word in just about any app and if I do a Force Click on this word it actually looks up the word. It's kind of this mini dictionary app window. 
Now how you secondary click on a trackpad is different than how you do it on a mouse. So on a mouse you go to Point & Click and you choose Secondary Click. You can turn it Off and you can still get a secondary click by holding the Control key and doing a regular click or you can click on the right side or left side. On a trackpad, though, you've got more options. So Secondary Click here has the Off setting and it has got Bottom Right Corner and Bottom Left Corner. But you also have a click with two-fingers which is the default. This is a great way to access things like Context Menus. For instance I would use two-fingers on my trackpad and click here and it brings up the Context Menu for the Desktop. 
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Now if you look under Scroll & Zoom for the trackpad you've got the ability to zoom in or out by pinching with two-fingers. You can turn this On or Off right here. Notice the animation here at the top of the Settings windows. So you're using two-fingers and pinching in or spreading out. So, for instance, here I am in Pages. If I want to zoom in I can just use my two-fingers and spread them apart to zoom in and bring them together to zoom back out. You can use this control here if you've got a mouse, sure, and there's also in the View Menu in Zoom you've got the Zoom In and Zoom Out. You've got some keyboard shortcuts for it too. So there are ways to do it with a mouse. It's just really nice and convenient to do it with your fingers. 
You also have the ability to rotate with two-fingers. So you can see the animation there above. You just placing two-fingers on the trackpad and twisting. Now the App has to support that. For instance the Photos App does. You go to Edit here and you go to Crop. You've got your Straighten Tool there. But I can use two-fingers on a trackpad and actually twist left and right and you can see how that Straighten Meter changes. If you have a mouse you can simply drag here but it's really nice and convenient to be able to do it on the trackpad in way that feels that you're actually grabbing the photo and moving it around. The same way you might do it on an iPad or an iPhone. 
The one place where this is particularly useful is when you're using Markup Tools. So here I am in Preview. Let's go ahead and add a shape. I'm going to add a box here. Now I can put this box wherever I want and manipulate it in lots of ways with either a mouse or a trackpad. But the one thing that you can't do unless you have a trackpad is rotate it. There are no rotations controls in Preview and no other way to do it unless you actually have a trackpad. Then you can use two-fingers and rotate it left or right. This will work with any of the different elements here. So even a signature can actually be rotated using the trackpad this way.  
Now you've got this section called More Gestures here. You can see there's a lot you can do on a Trackpad. You go to the same section with the mouse then you'll see there is only a few things here. You can swipe between pages, you can swipe between full screen applications, and you can access Mission Control. If you go to Trackpad you'll find these three things as well. But you will find four others. Notification Center, which you can do by swiping left with the right edge which is an interesting gesture. It's not right to left. It's the right edge to the center. Just like the Notification Center is on the right side of the screen. So it is easy to remember. You bring them in like this. Once you have them there you can actually bring them out by dragging with two-fingers off to the right side of the screen. I've opened a bunch of windows here so you can see how these work. So Mission Control is swipe UP with three-fingers now and I can access Mission Control. Then App Exposé which will show me all the windows in the current app is swipe DOWN with three-fingers. You also have the ability to access Launchpad. You can use your thumb and three-fingers. You don't have to do exactly as the animation shows you there. Just put all your fingers, except for your little one, on the Trackpad and move them all into the middle. That will bring up Launchpad. To show Desktop the opposite of that. Just put all your fingers, except the little one, on the Trackpad and move them all apart. You can see how it moves all the windows away revealing any icons and widgets and things that you have on your Desktop. 
Another thing you can do with your Trackpad that you can't do on your mouse is add signatures to Markup Tools. So I am in Preview. I'm in Markup Tools and I'm going to create a signature and I've got a full video on how to add signatures. But note that if you have a Trackpad you can actually use your Trackpad to add a signature. In that case the Trackpad turns into a piece of paper and your finger into a pen and you actually draw on the Trackpad. So I will click here to begin and I will then draw something, I'm just going to put an x, in the middle of the Trackpad, like that. Press a key when I'm finished and then Done. I've added a different signature there. 
There are some more Trackpad options that aren't available here but in Accessibility Settings. I'm going to go to Motor and then Pointer Control. There's a Trackpad options button. Click that and now you've got Use Trackpad for dragging. Turn this On and then set the dragging style to Three-Finger Drag. If you turn this On and you want to move a window around take three-fingers and no clicking needed. Just swipe around as long as you're doing it in an area where you can normally drag the window. So it won't work down here or over here. You have to be at the top. Then you can drag just by lightly moving three-fingers around the Trackpad. You also, under Vision, can go to Zoom here. You can turn Zoom On and you can use a Trackpad gesture to Zoom. So double-tap three-fingers to toggle Zoom. You can see the Zoom is on. In this case I've got it set to have this little box here. But you can have it set to do it all sorts of different ways. If I double-tap three-fingers again it turns it Off.
Now if you have the stand alone Magic Trackpad, not a MacBook, there's a big difference between this and the Magic Mouse that has to do with a flaw in the design of the Magic Mouse that most people know about. That's the fact that there is a charging port underneath it. Meaning that if you run out of battery you have to actually turn the thing over to plug it in. Now you can just charge it for a few minutes and get enough to go till your next coffee break. But you can't use the Magic Mouse plugged in at all because the cable will be sticking out of the bottom. However, you can definitely do that with the Magic Trackpad because the charging port is here and you cannot only charge while you're using it but if you do connect this with the lightning connector to your Mac it then works as a wired trackpad. So you can actually turn Bluetooth Off and use this. It's really handy not only for charging but if you accidentally turn off Bluetooth or maybe you've got Bluetooth interference in your office or something like that you can use a wire connection to get around that. This is something you should never really need but I am surprised by often you actually do. If you've always used an Apple Mouse and you wondered what the fuss is over the Magic Trackpad or perhaps you always used the Trackpad and wondered if the mouse is any better then I hope you found all this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 13 Responses to “Things You Can Do With an Apple Trackpad That You Cant Do With a Mouse”

Steve Fleming

1 month ago

This was very helpful. I have just started using my trackpad on my MacBook while traveling and leaving the Magic Mouse at home. Did not know all the things you mentioned. Thanks again. My Patreon membership continues to pay huge dividends. You will never know how much you have helped an old dog learn new tricks. Have a wonderful day.

Sheldon

Thanks bunches.

Steve

Just a note: If you bought an iMac and subsequently decide to buy a trackpad, you can't get it in the matching colour. Colour matched iMac peripherals are only available when initially buying the iMac, not as a separate purchase.

Really irritating.

Bill Ferrol

Hi Gary, another very interesting post. I have a question - I have an old trackpad and have tried the deep press to check the meaning of a word as you demonstrated with the deep press. I don't get anything and have checked my settings and this feature is turned on. My question is, is my trackpad too old for this feature to work? It's a model A1339. Thanks

Gary Rosenzweig

Bill: Yes, that's the old 2010 model. They came out with a the modern one in 2015.

Jim Terrinoni

Intriguing! Who would have thought there was so much difference between input devices? Then, who would have taken the time to find this out? Answer to that, Gary. Thank you Gary for explaining this.

Thanks Gary, I thought that was the case. The deep press works on my MacBook pro though.

Julie Wasmus

Thank you, Gary! I an newer to the magic trackpad and only found a few features by accident. Now I'm can take advantage of those you shared as well!

Jonathan

4 weeks ago

Gary is there a way to reduce the width of an open window using the trackpad that does not require dragging the edge of the window while holding down the trackpad with a relatively hard click?

Jonathan: You have to click to do it, doesn't have to be that hard though. Or, you can use the three-finger drag option I show in this video.

Thanks Gary I had that turned on like you showed in the video and I guess it was disengaged when I changed the swipe between spaces to three finger mode. It works now.

3 days ago

Gary, besides the deep press feature and the lack of batteries are there any other differences that you are aware of between the new Trackpad and the original generation 1 model? Are the ergonomics similar?

Jonathan: I don't know the technical details offhand, but when I changed years ago it felt a lot different. If anything, the ergonomics are better. Feels like the resolution is better too. Surface is nicer. Try it next time you are near a place that sells Macs.

Things You Can Do With an Apple Trackpad That You Cant Do With a Mouse

Comments: 13 Responses to “Things You Can Do With an Apple Trackpad That You Cant Do With a Mouse”

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