One finger scrolling on a MacBook touchpad

Question

After an accident that damaged my hands, I am no longer able to do the two finger scrolling gesture on a MacBook touchpad. On Windows I set up so called "scrollzone", it allows me to scroll smoothly by dragging one finger along the right edge of the touchpad.

I would like to have this feature on macOS as well.

I tried many apps, namely these and none of them could do this:

• Smart Scroll
• BetterTouchTool
• MagicPrefs

I even tried to contact the developers if they would be willing to work on this, but they either ignore me or say they cannot do it.

People advise me to buy a Magic Mouse, which supposedly can do it, or to scroll with arrow keys. No, thanks. I know there are workarounds available, but I know what works best for me (scrollzone) and I am unwilling to settle for less.

I would gladly sacrifice other trackpad gestures. I cannot use them anyway.

There was a program called SideTrack that could do this, but it does not work any more. I wrote to the author, but got little help.

Solution 1

I created a paid app called Scroll that allows one finger scrolling on Apple trackpads. You can download it at https://ryanhanson.dev/scroll.

As you can see from the following screenshot, it has scroll zones, scroll areas, and the ability to hold a modifier key and scroll with one trackpad touch.

Solution 2

I would recommend using BetterTouch Tool with configs as shown in the img:

This will scroll the page up with single finger tap on top right corner and scroll down with single finger tap on bottom right corner

Solution 3

Works with "SmartScroll", called "Grab Scroll" with "scroll without moving cursor" option. Karabiner-Elements also has this option, but it does not work with built-in trackpad yet.

Comments

[Ryan H]

Did you ever figure out a solution to your problem? If you are still interested in this, I don't mind giving it a go. I'm the developer of an app called Multitouch, and it wouldn't be that hard to build what you're asking for. The only weird part is that the mouse cursor might still move in addition to the scrolling. It's probably not something I would include in Multitouch, but I would consider open sourcing it as a really simple app if I make it.

[user7610]

@RyanH I've asked this question on behalf of a fellow student at the college. I'll get in touch and see if the problem is still relevant. Thanks!

[user7610]

It seems it still is.

[Ryan H]

Ok, cool. I don't think I will get to this until next month but I will definitely do it. I'll post back here when it's ready. For the sake of time, I might build it into my app as opposed to open sourcing it at first.

[user7610]

This does not really answer my question and I am not sure why would anyone want to setup this (using trackpad to emulate Page Up/Down key) but thanks anyway.

[mmmonk]

"Scroll" works amazing, but each time I scroll it removes focus from the current app and do not give it back( Is it an API limitation that focus can't be given back to an app?

[Ryan H]

@grigoryvp I did initially implement giving the focus back to an app, but it was a worse user experience than just not giving the focus back, as there is no elegant way to tell an app precisely which window to focus. The corner touch option in Scroll doesn't steal focus since you're not moving the cursor, if you wanted to try that out.

[mmmonk]

Oh, I never thought about multiplt windows. 95% of my scrolling workflow is within a Chrome/Safari browser, and it has only one window. Right now focus goes away if I move mouse or scroll while "Scroll" is active with "hold-button-to-scroll" enabled, so I always need to click back after any mouse or scroll interaction. Maybe introducing the "give back focus" option and not taking focus on non-scroll mouse moves will make app really great!

[Ryan H]

@grigoryvp Thinking about it more, it was actually just really annoying to have focus change so much - the question of which window wasn't as annoying as the focus just changing twice every time scrolling, without it being done by you. Too bad there's not a good way to stop the cursor without focus. Maybe a better solution is to have a modifier key + corner touch? I don't mind adding in a config for what you want at some point, it's just a matter of getting the time for it :)

[mmmonk]

With one-finger scroll I normally use the central part of the touchpad for scrolling, while most of my fingers lie on the touch-typing home row. For me the idea of this "one finger scroll" is to use it with touch-type hands position, where I can leave my hands on the home row and use thumb to scroll things.

[Ryan H]

Good to know. One more thing that I haven't documented anywhere is that you can change the modifier key with the following command: defaults write com.knollsoft.Scroll modifierOverride <modifier> where <modifier> can be ctrl alt fn shift

[Ryan H]

Also, you might be interested in my other app, Hookshot (not trying to sell it, just trying to be of help, since mod key + trackpad movement works for you).

[Ryan H]

@grigoryvp, just to clarify on why having the focus change so much was such a bad user experience - when I typically scroll down a page, I usually pick up my finger and scroll again for scroll areas that are large (which tends to be most things). Especially with Scroll where there's no momentum scroll, the focus switch every time for this was terrible. At this point, is there a better way to return focus than to just click back on the window?

[mmmonk]

Sounds reasonable. I also use multiplt touch gestures to scroll large body of content. Still, "focus change" is just a slight caption color change on the macOS, so clicking back every time I move mouse or scroll looks like an action that servers no practical purpose). Thanks for Hookshot! I use spectacles + hotkeys for such tasks, but Windows-like mouse snap is also nice!

[mmmonk]

I recorded a video illustration how I use touchpad right now on OS'es with one-finger-scroll support: youtube.com/watch?v=j-J0fMAVg2c

[Ryan H]

Thanks for the video, that definitely helps. Another user asked to put the corner touch scroll actions in the top left and right corners to allow fingers to stay on the home row, and this is another item that I think is worthwhile (again just a matter of being able to allocate time to working on Scroll). On another note, I rewrote the no-longer-maintained Spectacle in Swift as a new app called Rectangle. It's also free and open source: rectangleapp.com. It has the drag windows to screen edges to snap as well.

[Ryan H]

@grigoryvp just a heads up that I updated this answer to include my updated version of Scroll that solves the application focus issue. Note that the new version is not free.

[mmmonk]

Thanks a lot! 👍