Shaun McCance
shaunm@gnome.org
Michael Hill
mdhillca@gmail.com
Ekaterina Gerasimova
kittykat3756@gmail.com 2013, 2015
Click, drag, or scroll using taps and gestures on your touchpad.
Daniel Șerbănescu
daniel [at] serbanescu [dot] dk 2016, 2019

# Click, drag, or scroll with the touchpad

You can click, double-click, drag, and scroll using only your touchpad, without separate hardware buttons.

Touchscreen gestures are covered separately.

# Tap to click

You can tap your touchpad to click instead of using a button.

Open the Activities overview and start typing Mouse & Touchpad.

Click on Mouse & Touchpad to open the panel.

In the Touchpad section, make sure the Touchpad switch is set to on.

The Touchpad section only appears if your system has a touchpad.

Switch the Tap to click switch to on.

To click, tap on the touchpad.

To double-click, tap twice.

To drag an item, double-tap but don’t lift your finger after the second tap. Drag the item where you want it, then lift your finger to drop.

If your touchpad supports multi-finger taps, right-click by tapping with two fingers at once. Otherwise, you still need to use hardware buttons to right-click. See for a method of right-clicking without a second mouse button.

If your touchpad supports multi-finger taps, middle-click by tapping with three fingers at once.

When tapping or dragging with multiple fingers, make sure your fingers are spread far enough apart. If your fingers are too close, your computer may think they’re a single finger.

# Two finger scroll

You can scroll using your touchpad using two fingers.

Open the Activities overview and start typing Mouse & Touchpad.

Click on Mouse & Touchpad to open the panel.

In the Touchpad section, make sure the Touchpad switch is set to on.

Switch the Two-finger Scrolling switch to on.

When this is selected, tapping and dragging with one finger will work as normal, but if you drag two fingers across any part of the touchpad, it will scroll instead. Move your fingers between the top and bottom of your touchpad to scroll up and down, or move your fingers across the touchpad to scroll sideways. Be careful to space your fingers a bit apart. If your fingers are too close together, they just look like one big finger to your touchpad.

Two-finger scrolling may not work on all touchpads.

# Natural scrolling

You can drag content as if sliding a physical piece of paper using the touchpad.

Open the Activities overview and start typing Mouse & Touchpad.

Click on Mouse & Touchpad to open the panel.

In the Touchpad section, make sure that the Touchpad switch is set to on.

Switch the Natural Scrolling switch to on.

This feature is also known as Reverse Scrolling.