Joe's Quest

Using magic mouse 2 fingers swipe in Chrome/Firefox in Lion

UPDATE on Sep 15th:

If you don’t want to use any other 3rd party software, it still can be done. Take Trackpad as example: Keep the default setting no change (2 fingers for Safari smooth history, 3 fingers for full screen app switch), when going forward or backward in Chrome or Firefox etc., press ALT(OPTION) key while swiping with 3 fingers. Thanks to Alejandro to provide the useful tip!

UPDATE on Aug 31st:

jitouch, the Solution for Multi-touch Gestures of OS X Lion

IMPORTANT UPDATE on Aug 21st:

After upgrading to 10.7.1, solution below does not work anymore. If you want forward/backward back, try using MagicPrefs. I’m testing. Again, you cannot use 2 fingers swipe of Trackpad (1 finger for Magic Mouse) go back and forth in Chrome, Finder, iTunes, Firefox and so on in 10.7.1 without help of 3rd party software’s help.

Just upgraded to Mac OS X Lion. A lot of new features come with some habits you may have to change. For example, the smooth browsing backward/forward experience in Safari together with no functioning of magic mouse’s 2 fingers swipe for backward/forward in Chrome/Firefox or other web browser or applications.

You may have same habit with me, on using magic mouse:

  • Use 1 finger to scroll around (few webpages scrolls left to right, but they exist)
  • Use 2 fingers to go backward/forward
  • The 2 habits above apply to all browsers Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Opera, etc. Oh, and Finder.
  • Some other applications may need this too, like in Sparrow, to fold and unfold a mail

When upgrading to Lion, something changed as follows by default:

  • Use 1 finger to go backward/forward in Safari. (Yes, it’s moving smoothly, nicely, elegantly…)
  • Use 2 fingers to move to different desktop in “Mission Control”
  • Cannot go backward/forward in other favorite browsers. Oh, and Finder.
  • Cannot fold/unfold a mail in Sparrow either.

And here’s the solution(with which, you need to give up something):

  1. Open Magic Mouse setting in System Preferences
  2. In More Gestures tap, click the drop down list under Swipe between pages and choose Swipe left or right with two fingers
  3. Uncheck the Swipe between full-screen apps

Now you get your old 2 fingers gesture for magic mouse back, and you give up smooth moving backward/forward in Safari — you can still move backward/forward in Safari, just not smoothly.

Wait a minute, how about the “Swipe between full-screen apps”? If you really need that and don’t mind to use 3 fingers to swipe for this, you can use MagicPrefs, which provides you so many different actions for Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, Macbook Trackpad. You can define a 3 fingers swipe gesture to “Switch Space Left/Right”, and it’s free, Hallelujah!

For smoothing moving backward/forward in Safari, if only one finger swipe can be applied to it, I have to give it up. One reason is as above, the other is, it may cause some mis-action when browsing. Hope apple could give a update for magic mouse 2 fingers gesture later.

Discussion (5)

There are 5 responses to “Using magic mouse 2 fingers swipe in Chrome/Firefox in Lion”.

  1. Steve responded:

    · Reply

    Hmm, comment interface is confusing.

    Anyway, I tried the MagicPrefs app but could not get the three figer swipe deal working. Any suggestion?

    • Tkjune responded:

      @Steve The functions marked with * are not stable. Do u mean it’s not working at all, or not so sensitive? I tried 3 fingers on Magic Mouse, feel not so good either.

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  3. Alejandro responded:

    · Reply

    While I see all these blog post doing it this way, no one mentions that you can also press alt(option) + two finger swipe to go back and forth in chrome, firefox, finder. I left all the default settings the same.

  4. @Alejandro I just tried your way, works well. I add it to the post. Thank you.

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