How to Middle Click on Mac Without a Mouse (2026 Guide)
A complete guide to middle-clicking on Mac using just your trackpad. Built-in tricks, third-party tools, and why MidClick is the most reliable option.
If you’ve ever switched from Windows to Mac, the first thing you probably missed is the middle mouse button. On Windows, the middle button opens links in new tabs, closes tabs, pastes in terminals, and dozens of other things that feel natural.
On a Mac trackpad, there’s no built-in middle button. Apple never shipped one.
This guide covers every way to middle-click on a Mac without an external mouse — from Apple’s hidden “Tap with three fingers” gesture to lightweight third-party utilities like MidClick.
The built-in options (and why they’re bad)
Option 1: Two-finger Force Touch click
On Macs with a Force Touch trackpad (most MacBooks since 2015, Magic Trackpad 2), you can enable “Force Click and haptic feedback” in System Settings. Then you “hard press” with one finger to get a secondary click.
Problem: This is just a right-click, not a middle click. Different apps treat it differently. Most browsers ignore it entirely.
Option 2: Two-finger tap (Secondary click)
You can configure “Secondary click” to trigger on a two-finger tap. This sends a right-click, not a middle-click. Again, useless for opening links in new tabs.
Option 3: Three-finger drag (also wrong)
macOS has a hidden gesture where a three-finger drag can be configured as a drag gesture, but this is for dragging files, not middle-clicking.
Option 4: External mouse
If you already use a Magic Mouse or external mouse with a scroll wheel, you can middle-click by pressing the scroll wheel down. But that defeats the purpose of using a trackpad.
The clean solution: a three-finger tap utility
Apps like MidClick, MiddleClick, and MiddleTouch all do the same
thing: listen for a three-finger tap on your trackpad, then synthesize a
middle-click event via macOS’s CGEvent API.
The implementation is small. The differences are in stability, weight, and how well they handle edge cases.
What to look for in a middle-click utility
- Memory footprint — Older Intel iMacs struggle with utilities that leak memory. MidClick sits at under 10MB and stays there.
- Sleep/wake reliability — Most utilities break when your Mac sleeps. MidClick auto-reconnects to the touch device on wake.
- App blacklists/whitelists — Some apps (like Photoshop with tablet pressure sensitivity) shouldn’t receive synthesized events. Make sure your utility has blacklist mode.
- Daily limits — A free tier with reasonable daily limits is fine, but make sure you can unlock with a one-time purchase, not a subscription.
- Privacy — Avoid utilities that phone home. MidClick only contacts the license server, and only with an anonymous hash.
How to set up MidClick in 30 seconds
- Download the latest release from our GitHub releases page.
- Unzip and drag MidClick.app to your Applications folder.
- Launch MidClick. Grant Accessibility and Input Monitoring permissions when prompted.
- Three-finger tap anywhere on your trackpad. You should see a middle-click event fire in your active app.
That’s it. No login, no configuration required.
Common troubleshooting
“It’s not triggering”
Check System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. Make sure MidClick is listed and enabled. On macOS 13+, also check Input Monitoring.
“It triggers when I don’t want it to”
Open Settings from the menu bar and add the offending app to your blacklist. Common culprits include drawing apps (which interpret three-finger taps as zoom or pan) and virtualization apps.
“It conflicts with Mission Control”
macOS uses four-finger swipes for Mission Control. MidClick only listens to three-finger taps, so there’s no actual conflict. If you’re seeing unintended behavior, check that no other gesture utility is installed.
Why we built MidClick
We tried MiddleClick, MiddleTouch, and BetterTouchTool. They all had one or more of: memory leaks over time, sleep/wake failures, no blacklist support, subscription pricing, or aggressive upselling.
MidClick is our take on the ideal middle-click utility: native code, no bloat, one feature done well, free with daily limits, paid once for Pro.
It’s the app we wanted to exist, so we built it.
Try MidClick: Download the free version for macOS 11 and later.