Show us your BetterTouchTool Tricks

I set up a complex way of Inserting the Current date with a text that changes according to the month etc. I want those complex Textexpansions to be acted on, within a buch of stacked up actions I set up within BTT.

I do the same with Shift-Control-Option-Command +1, 2 or 3.
Shift-Control-Option-Command is Caps Lock acting as a hyper key.

After I read MacSparky’s post about hyper key in BTT, I immediately try.
Sadly BTT’s hyper key cannot work if you also use Karabiner Elements (KE). I use KE to enhance my mechanical keyboard, so removing KE is non-option.

For others that experienced the same—want hyper key while KE exist, I found the solution by using this complex modification for KE. Open this website listing KE complex modifications, then search for “CAPS_LOCK to HYPER”. Import the one you found.


I currently use BTT for:

  • emulate middle mouse click with 4 tap on trackpad
  • enable “word lookup” with both 3 tap on trackpad and force touch
    • also with control+right click with normal mouse
  • make UNIX shortcut works in any text field for any app, even app that doesn’t use mac native TextField.
  • inspired by the great nvALT, emulate ⌘J and ⌘K to navigate down and up in some apps (Mail.app, Things 3)…

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can you elaborate on the settings you used to do this? i can’t seem to find the “mouse over menubar” trigger…

yes, so you create a new ‘Normal Mouse’ configuration, then you do scroll up (or down) while hover the trigger area.

Screen Shot 2021-12-16 at 13.45.47

then in ‘Advanced’ tab, you choose ‘Trigger while mouse over menu bar’

Screen Shot 2021-12-16 at 13.46.14

Isn’t the 4 finger swipe for spaces already in MacOS trackpad preferences?

Could you please link to this app called ‘Listen’? Did a quick search but to no avail. TIA!

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Definitely for customizing the touch bar! My touch bar currently has a button to quit whatever app is active, quickly add an item to Omnifocus, and create a new note in Craft. I also have a countdown of how long my battery should last and what my next calendar item is. BTT makes the touch bar actually useful and I hate the idea of Apple getting rid of it now that BTT makes it useful.

You might want to try Touché which is an onscreen workalike (well, you have to use a pointing device rather than press the touch bar. Perhaps when we get touchscreen displays?)

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Touché looks very interesting - but is there a way to customize the items in its touchbar?

System Preferences → Keyboard → Keyboard → Customize Control Strip

However I would expect BetterTouchTool will work (I haven’t tried it).

(Finally) Keyboard Right Clicks!

And yet another trick I stumbled across while trying to do something more complex in BTT:

I found a way to right click to get the context menu without using the trackpad. This is something I’d been wanting since forever (like windows has a context menu keyboard key).

I set ctrl-R to do this:

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Tried it and it works only at the position of the mouse instead of the selected item/text. That makes it pointless to me. How is that useful?

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