Middle For Mac

If you're a fan of middle-clicking, a Mac's trackpad or the Magic Mouse might not be your best friends. While the functionality offered by the middle mouse button can easily be replaced with other actions, users who are accustomed to clicking a scroll wheel will find the transition to another device quite difficult.

Middle, an app with a self-explanatory name, makes your laptop's trackpad and the Magic Mouse a bit more versatile. With one of four actions, you will be able to trigger a middle click just as if you were using a classic mouse.

So you've bought a brand-new MacBook, and you're trying to get used to its, frankly, fantastic trackpad. But there's a snag — how do you open a link in a new tab, or close a tab without finding the close button? How do you pan in CAD software? You'd normally use a middle click for that, but a scroll wheel nowhere to be found.

The same goes for the Magic Mouse, with its distinctly smooth and wheel-less surface. Thankfully, since these devices support a wide range of gestures, it's possible to have one of these trigger the middle click you are so fond of.

If you happen to use both a trackpad and a Magic Mouse, you'll be happy to know they can be configured separately.

On a trackpad, you can use a three-finger click, a three-finger tap, a four-finger tap, or a one-finger force touch to simulate a middle click. On a Magic Mouse, there are similar options — a one-finger click in the center, a two-finger click, a three-finger click, and lastly, a three-finger tap.

If you want something totally different, you can configure the app to simulate a middle click whenever you hold down the fn key and click the left mouse button. It will take some getting used to, but this method might be preferable for some.

If the gestures you use for middle-clicking conflict with certain applications, you have the option of disabling Middle when a specific app is highlighted. However, you can't see a list of ignored apps, so you have to check them one-by-one if you can't remember which were marked as such.

There are other apps, some even free, that try to make middle-clicking possible on devices that lack scroll wheels, but this particular application offers quite a few more features than most. Especially when it comes to customization options, Middle is better than the alternatives I've come across.