Something we really like about the Mac is the way you can navigate using gesture controls, just like you do on your phone. These gesture controls can be performed on a Mac notebook’s trackpad or on the Apple Magic Trackpad, which is available for desktop Macs. You can even do a few of them on a Magic Mouse.
One of the things that makes the Mac such a pleasure to use is its large and responsive MacBook multi-touch trackpad or the desktop Mac’s Magic Trackpad. You can use the trackpad in much the same way as you would use the touchscreen of an iPhone or iPad: to quickly and easily access menus, sort through stacks of pictures or documents, scroll through documents and to zoom in and out of displayed images. Once you get used to it, you’ll find that it’s a very easy and intuitive way of controlling your Mac and that it can do far more than just scrolling up and down your documents or websites.
Single Click
Unlike most other trackpads, the entire MacBook trackpad works the same as the mouse button; and you can click anywhere on the track pad to activate apps and select icons.
Scroll Vertically
Place two fingers together on the trackpad, then move them up or down. This will scroll vertically up or down the document or web page you’re currently viewing.
Zoom In & Out
Two-finger pinching lets you zoom in or out on PDFs, images, photos, and other large visual documents or web pages. Place two fingers on the trackpad, then move them apart to zoom in, or together to zoom out. The quicker you move your fingers, the more you’ll zoom.
Rotating Images
You can rotate images by placing two fingers on the trackpad and then turning your hand so that your fingers both move in a curve. It can be a little awkward on the wrist at first but you’ll soon get used to it. With practice, you wonder how you ever did without it.
Access Mission Control
You can access the macOS Mojave Mission Control at any time, even if you’ve got a full-screen app open. Simply place three fingers at the bottom of the trackpad and move them quickly upwards and Mission Control appears.
Switching Between Full-Screen Apps
If you’ve got several apps open full screen at once, you can quickly flip between them using a gesture. Place three fingers on the trackpad and quickly slide them to the left or right. This will scoot the current app aside, revealing the next in line.
Force Click
If you’ve got several apps open full screen at once, you can quickly flip between them using a gesture. Place three fingers on the trackpad and quickly slide them to the left or right. This will scoot the current app aside, revealing the next in line.
Turn-off Force Click
If you dislike the Force Click gesture, and find it gets in the way of your workflow, it’s easy to turn it off. Open System Preferences (under the Apple menu in the top left corner), and go to the Trackpad pane. Under the first tab, Point & Click, you see a checkbox labelled ‘Force Click and haptic feedback’. Uncheck it to turn off this feature.