BetterTouchTool 6.726 — Mac version

Custom named triggers. That’s the feature that changes how you build shortcuts. Instead of hunting for a specific trackpad pinch you’ve forgotten about, you draw a quick shape or assign a gesture to a named sequence you’ll actually remember. It’s a small detail that makes big shortcut libraries manageable.

You get proper per-app rule targeting. A three-finger swipe can scrub through a video timeline inside your editor but do nothing on the desktop. The same gesture, different life depending on which window has focus. It stops the global shortcut gridlock you get with stock macOS.

The screenshot tool is a quiet bonus most people miss. It captures a region, then hands you an on-the-fly editor for arrows, boxes and text before the file ever hits your drive. No opening Preview for a quick markup.

For folks who tinker, the gesture drawing palette lets you sketch a shape on the trackpad and bind it to a system action. It’s raw input mapping that covers everything from a Siri Remote to a standard wired mouse.

Repair café advice: remap keys with a driver or with an app

I get asked about this at the repair café a lot, usually by someone holding a tired old MacBook and wondering what to install first.

BetterTouchTool vs. Karabiner-Elements. Karabiner is the go-to for remapping keys at the driver level, and it's brilliant for that. But it stops at keys. BetterTouchTool covers keys, trackpad gestures, mouse buttons, Touch Bar widgets and even the Siri Remote. If you only need to swap Caps Lock for Escape, Karabiner is simpler. If you want a two-finger click on the trackpad to run a shell script and a corner tap to mute the mic, BetterTouchTool does all that in one place.

BetterTouchTool vs. Keyboard Maestro. Keyboard Maestro is a macro engine first. It runs multi-step workflows, moves files, fills forms, chains actions. BetterTouchTool leans harder on physical input — gestures, buttons, drawings. The two overlap on keyboard shortcuts, but the feel is different. Keyboard Maestro is a workshop for automation recipes. BetterTouchTool is more like rewiring the controls themselves. Plenty of folk run both, but if you start with trackpad gestures and Touch Bar tweaks, BetterTouchTool is the cleaner fit.

BetterTouchTool vs. built-in macOS shortcuts. System Settings gives you a fixed list of shortcuts and a few trackpad options. BetterTouchTool gives you per-app rules, drawing recognition, clipboard history and a screenshot editor. It's the difference between a TV remote and a programmable control surface.

Mapping 40 gestures before lunch and forgetting them by Friday

Most of these come up in the first week, so they're worth clearing out early.

• Assigning everything at once. People open the app, get excited, and map forty gestures before lunch. By Friday they can't remember what a four-finger swipe does. Start with three or four actions you use daily. Let them settle in.
• Forgetting per-app rules. A global three-finger tap that works nicely in Finder can be chaos in a browser. Check the App dropdown on each trigger before you save it.
• Ignoring the conflict warnings. If BetterTouchTool tells you a gesture is already used by macOS, listen. Otherwise you get a surprise when Mission Control opens instead of your screenshot tool.
• Skipping backups. The app stores presets locally. Export them now and then. Rebuilding a year of gesture mappings after a wipe is no fun.
• Assuming the Touch Bar is dead. On older MacBook Pros with a Touch Bar, a lot of people write it off. BetterTouchTool can put genuinely useful widgets up there, but only if you give it a chance.

Start with the one gesture you use constantly

A few things I'd tell someone setting it up for the first time.

1. Pick one gesture you use constantly and remap it first. A three-finger tap for Mission Control, a corner tap for screenshot, a side button for mute. Get one win under your belt before building more.
2. Name your triggers clearly. "Swipe down three fingers — Safari" beats "Gesture 14". Future you will be grateful.
3. Use the clipboard manager from day one. It's built in and quietly useful. Copy three things, open the history, paste the one you actually need. You'll wonder how you lived without it.
4. Try the drawing gestures. Sketch a simple shape like a zigzag or a circle on the trackpad and bind it to something you do often — lock the screen, open Downloads, toggle dark mode. It feels odd for a day, then it becomes second nature.
5. Test each new trigger in the app it's meant for. A shortcut that works on the desktop might do nothing inside Photoshop or Xcode until you check the per-app settings.

An hour of setup to speed up a weekly podcast edit

Imagine someone cutting a weekly podcast on an older Intel MacBook Pro. They live in their audio editor, jumping between tracks, trimming clips, dropping markers. The trackpad defaults are fine, but slow.

They install BetterTouchTool, spend an hour with it, and set up a few per-app gestures that only fire inside the editor. A three-finger swipe left and right scrubs the timeline. A two-finger tap drops a marker. A three-finger pinch zooms the waveform. Outside the editor, the same gestures do nothing, so there's no conflict with Safari or Finder.

They also drag a couple of custom widgets onto the Touch Bar: a button that runs an AppleScript to export the current selection, and a small display showing the clipboard history so they can grab a file name pasted ten minutes ago without opening anything.

By the second week, editing sessions are shorter. Not because the audio changed, but because their hands never leave the trackpad to hunt for a menu item or keyboard combo. That's the point of the tool — not more features, just fewer interruptions.

• Version 6.726

• macOS 10.15 or later
• Apple Silicon or Intel Mac