How to "middle-click" on new MacBooks?

Question

I have recently switched to Mac, and the only thing I miss from my old notebook is the ability to middle-mouse-button-click by clicking both mouse buttons simultaneously.

This is a crucial feature when browsing the net as it opens links in a background tab. The best solution I have found by now is holding down Command-Shift and clicking, but this is often a bit hard to do (yeah, I surf on the couch — hey, it's a LAPtop after all — and often sit in strange positions).

Any tips on how to do this on the trackpad?

Answer 1

Check out BetterTouchTool. It adds gestures to your trackpad or Magic Mouse and there's tons of gestures available to set actions to.

To add the functionality you're looking for choose »Trackpad« from the input dropdown and add »Three finger click« as trigger and »Command+Click« as assigned action. Now clicking with three fingers will open it in a new tab.

For Safari you'll have to activate »⌘+click opens a link in a new tab«, before it works as intended.

ps. You can also set it to trigger with »Three finger tap«, but I can only get it to trigger consistently when I the »Force tab«, which I for one can't do consistently.

Answer 2

I don't believe it's configurable within the OS, but MiddleClick gives you a 3-tap middle click. It works really well in Firefox, which is what it was originally designed for. You'll need to tweak it so it fires up on logon.

Update April 2024: As noted in Alexandre's comment below, there is a forked recently maintained copy of MiddleClick on GitHub since the original is now archived.

Answer 3

If you use Firefox, Command-Click will open in a new tab.

Or you can hold two fingers on the trackpad and click; this gives you a right-click. You could then select 'open in new tab' from the context menu. (or get an extension like Tab Mix Plus and make right-click open a new tab)

Answer 4

what I want is a command-shift-click [...] I found the source code here: http://www.r0ssar00.com/2008/12/middle-click-on-mac-code.html... Could anyone out there please add a few lines and compile it so it command-shift-clicks?

I've fixed/modified the code to, I think, perform a command+shift+click (if not, try other values for (CGKeyCode)56 - but 56 seems to be shift)

// click.m
//
// Compile with: 
// gcc -o click click.m -framework ApplicationServices -framework Foundation
//
// Usage:
// ./click
// Will cmd+shift+click mouse at current location.
//
// Based on http://www.r0ssar00.com/2008/12/middle-click-on-mac-code.html
// For http://superuser.com/questions/13351/how-to-middle-click-on-new-macbooks/13356#13356
// Modified by dbr - http://neverfear.org
#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import <ApplicationServices/ApplicationServices.h>
int main(int argc, char argv[]) {
    NSAutoreleasePool pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
    NSUserDefaults *args = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
CGEventRef ourEvent = CGEventCreate(NULL);
CGPoint ourLoc = CGEventGetLocation(ourEvent);

CGPostKeyboardEvent((CGCharCode)0, (CGKeyCode)55, true); // Cmd
CGPostKeyboardEvent((CGCharCode)0, (CGKeyCode)56, true); // Shift
CGPostMouseEvent(ourLoc, 1, 1, 1);
CGPostMouseEvent(ourLoc, 1, 1, 0);


[pool release];
return 0;

}

Combined with the technique mentioned in the link you mentioned (wrap the command in a Java app, and use MultiClutch), it should do it..

Answer 5

Middle is a single-purpose app for adding the middle click to macOS for Magic Mouse and Apple trackpads. You can pick from a few gestures for each device, or hold the fn key and left click for a middle click. (I'm the developer, and the app is not free)

Multitouch is an app for adding trackpad and Magic Mouse gestures to macOS, and middle clicking is one of the available actions that can be tied to a gesture. (I'm the developer, and the app is not free)

Answer 6

Jitouch allows you to set gestures, one of which is middle-click.

Answer 7

Hopefully answering Zarg, I've found somewhere else in superuser about MultiClutch (which oddly wasn't cited in this question just yet). It seems like it started on early 2008, while BTT is from late 2009 and actually based on MultiClutch. I believe it can solve your issue, if you haven't found about it yet. I don't have any Leopard installed to actually try it.

Answer 8

Addressing creating a new tab from a link (with Firefox and Safari, havent tried Opera) using your trackpad and mouse button: you can drag links to tabs to replace the content, or you can drop the link at the end of your tab row to create a new tab.