Your Windows Laptop’s Touchpad Can Do Great Things You May Not Know

Your Windows Laptop’s Touchpad Can Do Great Things You May Not Know

For a pointing device, touchpads don’t get the same amount of attention like mice do. Most people focuses on its size and sometimes, clicking feel – but not much beyond that. Though it’s worth mentioning that just a few years ago, most laptop touchpads are handled by a company called Synaptics so the features do differ between each laptop (and features get somewhat fragmented as a result).

That’s a non-issue these days since virtually all touchpads are managed by Windows Precision Touchpad (which happens to be co-developed with Synaptics too), so every touchpad on Windows laptop functions exactly the same across different sizes and shapes. That being said, there’s quite a few more gestures that you may not be aware of, on top of what is given by default on every laptop – so here’s a few examples that you can take advantage of. (Note: Windows 10 used as demonstration – similar steps apply for Windows 11.)

Head to Settings, then Devices > Touchpad. Scroll down and you’ll see this section: by default, the ‘Swipes’ setting is set as ‘Switch apps and show desktop’, however you can pick other presets from here based on your usage preference. Those who are heavy on media consumption may prefer the ‘Change audio and volume’ option, which essentially turns your touchpad into a volume wheel with three-finger vertical scroll.

There’s another option as ‘Switch desktops and show desktop’, however this preset is fairly redundant as there are more efficient ways to perform the same action. At this point you can also change how the three-finger tap and four-finger tap behaves, but for now – leave these options aside first, as you may need to use it to complement the advanced controls that we’ll talk about in a second (and you can still set it in the next page). FYI – the current configuration is what I personally use on a daily basis.

Now, the real secret of this feature is Custom – as seen above. To enable custom mapping, the page is hidden in probably the worst spot there is – “Advanced gesture configuration” on the right side of the window under the “Related Settings” section. (Windows 11 should have this section of the setting more visible.)

You’ll be greeted with the new page that lists all the controls you can remap, like these images below:

Here, the settings allows for huge amounts of customization on how your swipe behaves on each direction – you can remap up to 10 functions in total (tap, swipe left, swipe right, swipe up, swipe down in three-finger mode and four-finger mode). At this point I suggest you experiment with each one of them and see which one suits best to your way of navigating through Windows.

In my case, I pick ‘Switch apps’ on three-finger swipe up which brings Alt+Tab interface when I pull three fingers, and you can nudge one finger to select which window you want to land on. Simply release the fingers and it’ll immediately jump to the selected window – much faster than actually pressing Alt and Tab together and cycle through each one of them by pressing Tab repeatedly.

If you’re a browser-heavy user, this next one should make navigating between tabs a lot quicker. We know that Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab switches to next and previous tab, respectively (tip: it works in most apps that contain tab elements). But switching between tabs are technically not a native feature on Windows (with the exception of Microsoft Edge working around this by presenting each tab as a ‘window’ when you access Alt+Tab window switcher), so to get this to work we’ll need to set what is essentially a macro key.

To do that, simply pick the method you prefer (I recommend three-finger swipe left/right, but you can do four-finger swipe if you prefer it that way), then on the drop down select ‘Custom shortcut’. Here, you’ll be asked to set a custom shortcut key to execute when performing the swipe action – click ‘Start recording’, then press Ctrl+Tab on your keyboard, and click Stop recording. Do the same on the other direction, this time with Ctrl+Shift+Tab instead.

When this is done, you can simply swipe with three or four fingers to rapidly scroll through multiple tabs, or just between the two. Pro tip: this works best when you have multiple windows, and have a separate mouse (with side buttons) with a dedicated macro set as Alt+Tab to switch between browser windows, that way you can peek through multiple tabs quickly – useful if you need to keep a close eye on multiple live feeds – or if you’re just a heavy social media user.

Do the same for four-finger swipes – you can set whichever you like based on what you use most. In my case, I went with media controls (and have the four-finger tap set as Play/pause), so I don’t need to switch to media player in order to call the next track. Some laptops that do not come with dedicated media keys will probably find this extremely useful (my ROG STRIX G17 happens to be one of them, somehow).

And you’re set! There’s plenty of options here to choose, so don’t be afraid to try out each of them to see what fits your workflow best. Now your humble touchpad should be able to do a lot more things – and improve your productivity too, if you can harness the feature properly.

Info source: Ars Technica