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I have a button on the side of my mouse that Mission Control sees as Mouse Button 4.

In Mission Control's preferences, I can assign this button to either 'Show Desktop', 'Mission Control' or 'Show Dashboard'.

All three of these works fine, but if I try to map it to 'Application windows' the mouse button doesn't respond.

I'm able to bring up 'Application windows' using the keyboard shortcuts though.

My new iMac is 2 days old, so it's on fresh and up to date macOS Sierra. Same problem on my brand new MacBook, again with macOS Sierra.

Is the mouse shortcut just broken for this? Can anyone else reproduce it?

[Updated] My mouse is a Logitech G400 Optical Gaming Mouse. I've since installed the Logitech driver software, which also allows you to assign a button to Mission Control (which I did, and then unassigned it from system prefs).

This doesn't work properly either, but rather than not responding, all windows move a couple of pixels and then revert back to their original position. Almost like its trying to invoke Mission Control but something is aborting it. I can map the buttons to any other feature and it works fine

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    Give us the make and model of the Mouse. Most 3rd party mice have software to assign the mouse buttons to various functions.
    – Steve Chambers
    Sep 1, 2017 at 15:13
  • @Steve - Thanks, hadnt even thought about their driver software. Ive since installed that, and updated my question
    – carpii
    Sep 2, 2017 at 15:12
  • You may need to ask this on the Logitech discussion boards or call their tech support.
    – Steve Chambers
    Sep 2, 2017 at 19:46

1 Answer 1

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I use a Logitech MX Master Mouse with my iMac and instead of using the included software, I use a product called ControllerMate.

In it, I created a workflow that

  • detects the lower mouse button to show all desktops
  • issues a CommandQ to quit
  • issues a CommandW to close

enter image description here

You can have it send any command/text that you want and I have found it much easier and more reliable than the Logitech software.

In your case, I would assign a keyboard shortcut to Mission Control, then have ControllerMate intercept the mouse button press and then send the keyboard shortcut.

ControllerMate is free for up to 5 building blocks and then $25 for a full license. (I personally got the full license so I could program my buttons and a second Logitech keyboard for "quick macros"

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  • Thanks, this sounds useful. Im actually already a registered user of ControllerMate (great software, I use it to control Spotify from MIDI devices). Can you remember how to configure OSX to use ControllerMates mouse driver? Currently I cant create any mouse rules as it points out I'm still using Logitechs driver
    – carpii
    Sep 22, 2017 at 18:26
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    You have to turn off Logitech's control. Once you do that, CM should see it.
    – Allan
    Sep 22, 2017 at 18:46

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