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How do I enable trackpad tap clicking on my MacBook Pro?

A pal of mine showed me how she'd set up her MacBook to allow her to just gently tap on the trackpad to send a "click" to the operating system, as if she'd clicked on the mouse button. Very cool. How do I set up my MacBook Pro to let me do the same thing?

Dave's Answer:

You're talking about what Apple calls "trackpad gestures" and all of these settings -- and quite a bit more -- are available through the rather confusingly named "Keyboard and Mouse" control panel.

Start by going to Apple --> System Preferences... and choose Keyboard and Mouse. It'll look like this:

Mac OS X: System Preferences: Keyboard and Mouse (Trackpad)

(Actually, the last section, "illuminate keyboard in low light conditions", will only show up if you have a MacBook that has the lighted keyboard feature. I do, as you can see, and it's pretty darn cool. I couldn't imagine disabling it!)

Click on the Trackpad tab and you'll finally see what you seek:

You can see where the cursor is pointing: select "Clicking" and you're in business, ready to impress the heck out of your friends with your Mac tweaking prowess! If you want to learn about the many other options here, I strongly recommend you check out the keyword "Trackpad" in the Apple help system for the reference articles.

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Categorized: Mac OS X Help (Article 7308)
Tagged: customization, mac os x, macbook pro, trackpad
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Comments

Thank you so much for this post! I've been a Macbook owner for almost two months now and the one thing I was missing was the trackpad tapping. I think I just fell in love with my Macbook all over again :-)

Posted by: Amera at May 27, 2007 9:10 PM

Can you use track pad clicking if you are running windows xp on my Mac Book Air,,,,,it seems to work in os but not when I switch to Windows

Posted by: Patricia Roussel at March 2, 2008 2:37 PM

How do I set a background on the macbook?

Posted by: Jeff at March 6, 2008 6:48 PM

Dave, any solution for enabling trackpad problem in Macbook Air booted in Vista?

Posted by: Dinesh at October 24, 2008 4:52 AM

How DO you get the track pad to respond to tapping on the MacBook, when in XP?

Posted by: Michael Menke at November 2, 2008 7:37 PM

I have something to say, now that you mention it, but ...

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!