MacOS Command Line for Track Pad Settings

Question

In Ventura MacOS, I am trying to use a command line script for affecting the trackpad settings. Specifically, in this case, I am trying to turn on tap-to-click. But I would also like to turn on double-tap to drag, and change the scroll direction. The command that I have found are the following, but they do not work in Ventura:

sudo defaults write com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad Clicking -bool true
sudo defaults -currentHost write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 1
sudo defaults write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 1

Can anyone here help with the correct commands for these tasks? Thanks!

For the purposes of the bounty, here is what I am looking for:

Command-line commands to do the following 3 things on MacOS Ventura:

1. Turn on tap-to-click on a Macbook trackpad

2. Reverse the scroll direction

3. Turn on double-tap-to-drag (for moving windows around).

Thank you!

Answer 1

One method of determining what preference keys are is to make the change in the GUI, and then sort ~/Library/Preferences by Date Modified. You can then see which files have been modified by changing the options in System Settings. Then you can search those files for relevant terms.

Don't forget to include the hidden .GlobalPreferences.plist, too.

Answer 2

I'm setting up a new Mac with Ventura and have read of large inconsistencies in older system pref cmds, and unintended results in setting them via CLI (even when they do still exist). Due to Apple not publicly maintaining this info I tend to manually update most OS (mainly system & finder) prefs first, and leave the setup script for all other app installs and config.

Your best bet for figuring this out is to use git (or some other comparison tool) to compare system settings pre & post changing them manually... Something like:

1. touch macos-defaults.txt
2. defaults read > macos-defaults.txt
3. git add .
4. manually adjust the required setting
5. run defaults read > macos-defaults.txt again, then
6. run git diff or other to compare and see exactly what prefs changed

I've read recently that changing the trackpad or mouse scrolling behavior in Ventura changes the other (can't currently have different settings), so keep that in mind.

Good luck!