Using a touchpad on a Chrome OS device is easy once you know how

Master Chromebook gestures

Wondering how to right click on a Chromebook? Well, we’re gonna show you!

Chromebooks don’t have separate left and right buttons on the trackpad. This a design quirk that leaves some people confused.

Just how do you rich click on a Chromebook without attracting a USB mouse with buttons?

Well the solution is obvious once you know it, but many new Chromebook owners are left stumped nonetheless.

If you want to how to right click or middle click on a Chromebook, this article is here to help you.

Chromebook Touchpad Basics

Chrome OS enables “tap-to-click” by default. This means you don’t need to physically press down anywhere on the touchpad to click.

That said the lower half of most Chromebook touchpads is a ‘pressable’ button. You get feedback, hear a click, it feels natural, etc.

But as on Apple laptops “clicking” in the lower right-hand side of the touchpad does not create a ‘right-click’ response. In fact, it doesn’t matter where you click on the touchpad you’ll still be clicking normally.

Tap-to-click is used in Chrome OS to perform regular right click and middle click actions.

How To Right Click on a Chromebook

Right Click

There are two ways to right click on a Chromebook using the touchpad.

The first is to tap once on the touchpad using two fingers. This will open the right-click menu over whatever element in focus.

For example, on the ‘desktop’ the right-click menu offers options to change the wallpaper and move the shelf to a different location; on web-pages the right-click menu shows actions like copy, paste, etc.

Another (less popular) way to right click on a Chromebook is to press the Alt key and tap on the touchpad using one finger, anywhere, at the same time. This will open the right-click context menu.

You don’t have to ‘tap’ either, you can press Alt and physically click to achieve the same thing.

How to Middle Click on a Chromebook

Middle Click

If you’ve ever used a mouse with a clickable scroll-wheel you’ll know how useful ‘middle click’ actions are.

In Chrome OS middle-click can do a number of things, depending on what is being clicked on.

The two most common uses are:

Middle click on a link to open it in a background tab

Middle click on an open tab to close it

Chromebook middle click is done using a three finger tap on your trackpad.

Three fingers tapped on the touchpad at the same time can take some to master. If you cant quite get to grips — should that be tips? — with the middle click gestures you can also hold the Ctrl key and click on a link to have it open in a new background tab.

How to Scroll on a Chromebook

Scrolling

Chances are you’ve already figured this one out by yourself, but we’ll recap it for completions sake anyhow.

To scroll a webpage on a Chromebook you need to place two fingers on the touchpad then move them up or down (depending on your desired scroll direction) to make the page travel.

You can enable so-called ‘Australian Scrolling’, where pushing two fingers up the trackpad makes the page move up by changing the option in Settings > Touchpad and Mouse > Scrolling .

Easy when you know how, right?