Questions

How to use mouse side buttons on a Mac

The two buttons on the side of most mice are Button 4 and Button 5. On Windows they go back and forward. On a Mac they often seem dead, because macOS passes them to the app in front and leaves each app to decide, and many apps have no job for them. macOS itself can only put Mission Control, app windows, or Show Desktop on them. I built InputConfig, a free app, and it reads those buttons from any mouse, no vendor app needed, and gives each one any job you pick: back and forward, a keyboard shortcut, a macro, dictation, a Siri Shortcut, or a different job in every app.

Steps

1. Add a Mouse row and Scan the side button.
2. Choose the output.
3. Activate.

Set it up

1. Install InputConfig and allow Accessibility access.
2. Add a row with the input type Mouse, kind Button, and pick Scan in the button menu. Click the side button.
3. Choose the output. Command left bracket and Command right bracket give back and forward in browsers and the Finder.
4. Activate.

The built-in keyboard and mouse input preset is a starting point.

InputConfig is free on the Mac App Store. macOS 14 or later, no account, no tracking, open source.

Per-app layouts and double clicks

Make one preset per app and turn on auto-switch, and the side buttons change jobs when the app changes: tabs in the browser, undo and redo in an editor. A double click on a side button is its own input, so each button can carry two actions.

It adds, it does not replace

A button keeps whatever it already did, and InputConfig adds a job on top, which is why side buttons, which usually do nothing, are the best ones to use. The same goes for apps that already answer a side button: if a button goes back on its own in one app, adding Command left bracket there makes it go back twice. Click each button in the apps you use first, then leave any app that already handles it out of the preset with auto-switch. For the same reason InputConfig cannot switch a button off. It does not change scrolling speed, smooth scrolling, pointer acceleration, or DPI; apps such as LinearMouse, Mac Mouse Fix, and SteerMouse, or the mouse maker's own software, handle those, and they run fine alongside.

What macOS does on its own

Before installing anything, look in System Settings > Desktop & Dock and press Shortcuts near the bottom. Depending on your mouse, a second column of menus appears beside the keyboard ones, and it can put Mission Control, Application windows, or Show Desktop on a mouse button. If that is all you want, you are done.

What macOS cannot do is give a side button a keyboard shortcut, so back and forward in Safari and the Finder, copy and paste, or switching Spaces all need an app. System Settings > Mouse only swaps the left and right buttons.

Good jobs for two side buttons

• Back and forward: Command left bracket and Command right bracket. That is Back and Forward in Safari, Chrome, and the Finder. Add a Mouse row for each side button, Scan it, and give it the shortcut.
• Switch Spaces: Control left arrow and Control right arrow, the macOS shortcuts for the Space to the left and right.
• Copy and paste: Command C on one, Command V on the other.
• Undo and redo in an editor: Command Z and Shift Command Z.
• Mission Control, Spotlight, Launchpad, Play / Pause, volume, lock screen as system functions, no shortcut needed.
• Dictation on a thumb button, which is how I dictate most of what I write.
• A Siri Shortcut, an app, or a web page, opened with one click.
• A macro: a timed series of keys and clicks, or a line of text typed for you.

Each button can carry three of these at once: a click, a hold past a threshold, and a double click, which on a Mouse row is its own input, so the single click is not delayed.

When the side buttons do nothing at all

1. See what the Mac receives. Add a Mouse row, pick Scan in its button menu, and click the side button. If the row changes to Button 4, Button 5, or a higher number, the mouse is sending a standard button and InputConfig can use it. The Live Visualizer's Mouse & Trackpad template lights the side buttons too.
2. If nothing registers, check the mouse maker's app. A tool such as Logi Options+ can give a button its own job, and then the click may never reach macOS as Button 4. Set that button back to its default in the maker's app, or quit the app, and scan again.
3. Some buttons are not standard buttons. DPI switches, profile buttons, and some thumb or gesture buttons talk only to the maker's software. Nothing else can read those, InputConfig included.
4. Give the button a job and press Activate. The preset has to be running; the side buttons work in every app while it runs.

The whole back button problem, Safari and the Finder in particular, has its own page: mouse back button not working on a Mac.

InputConfig and the other mouse apps

They run side by side. I use InputConfig for what the buttons do and leave scrolling and pointer speed to a mouse app.

Questions

Related

• Keyboard, mouse, and trackpad as input
• Per-app profiles that switch by themselves
• Hold and double-tap
• Custom hot corners on a Mac that run any shortcut or app
• Which key remapper for Mac do you need?
• Mouse back button not working on a Mac
• System functions

Free. macOS 14 or later. No account, nothing leaves your Mac. Open source on GitHub.