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I'm currently using the old Apple Mighty Mouse and I configured clicking on the trackball as a "middle click" that's been very handy for opening links in new tabs, closing tabs, etc. However, the mouse is starting to show its age and I've been looking at Apple's Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad, and I'm wondering - do either of these support the "middle click" operation? If not, is there a gesture or a multi-finger click that can be used for the same things (i.e. opening new tabs, etc)?

3 Answers 3

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Our friends over at SuperUser have an answer for us:

Here are two utilities that will allow you to customize gestures on the Magic Mouse, including adding middle click:

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  • Thanks for the quick reply. It's too bad that they apparently don't support it "out of the box", but I'll check those programs out. Nov 9, 2010 at 4:49
  • Yeah there is a lot of potential for the mouse which apple didnt make use of. I haven't used any of those apps but I have heard good things, and have seen how configurable some of them are (very!). Nov 9, 2010 at 4:57
  • I use MagicPrefs. It's not quite as nice as a real middle click, because the mouse seems to get a bit confused sometimes. I think I will try BetterTouchTool and see if it's any better.
    – Fake Name
    Nov 9, 2010 at 9:00
  • The update to High Sierra seems to break MagicPrefs (which is discontinued), but BTT still works and looks like it will continue working / being maintained for the foreseeable future
    – jogi
    Jan 17, 2018 at 23:52
  • MagicPrefs is actually still somewhat usable in High Sierra, but it seems to be pretty flaky for a lot of people. Any 3rd party software that listens to touch data from the magic mouse is at the mercy of Apple allowing use of one of their private frameworks. For one of the High Sierra betas, Apple removed support, but later added it back in.
    – Ryan H
    Jun 23, 2018 at 1:16
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Multitouch is another option for adding "middle click" functionality to the Magic Mouse.

(Disclaimer, I'm the developer.)

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    I tried all of the old programs for the magic mouse middle click but this is the only one that worked. Thanks Ryan. I just made a purchase. I highly recommend it. I'm on the latest macOS version (Catalina 10.15) Oct 21, 2019 at 11:56
  • I too highly recommend Multitouch. It works perfectly with XQuartz too. BetterTouchTool is excessively and extraordinarily complex to configure just for proper button-down / button-up simulation, and it doesn't work correctly with XQuartz. Multitouch on the other hand is trivial to configure. Multitouch can also do the window-snap things old BTT did, though without the window-drag gestures so far as I can tell. Dec 5, 2019 at 23:45
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Middle Click is a free app and is perfect for that.

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