BetterTouchTool feels too complicated? Start with ready-made gesture sets
If BetterTouchTool feels like more than you need, that is a reasonable reaction to an app built to do a great deal: hundreds of triggers, hundreds of actions, and a setup you build yourself. The easier way in is to start from a ready-made set of a few gestures for the work you actually do, live with it for a few days, and add gestures of your own one at a time. Trill is built around that approach, with six Gesture Sets you switch on with one click.
This post covers why a blank setup is hard going, how to pick a first set, and what to do when a set’s gesture collides with one macOS already uses.
Why a blank setup is hard going
BetterTouchTool lists more than 600 triggers across every input device and more than 600 built-in actions, and actions can be chained into sequences. That breadth is the point of it. It also means that before anything works, you face a run of decisions: which gesture, on which device, doing which action, in which apps, and whether macOS already uses that gesture for something else.
Each decision is easy on its own. Making a dozen of them before the trackpad does anything new is what makes a flexible app feel like work. It is easy to open a powerful app, look at an empty list, and close it again without changing anything.
BetterTouchTool has its own answer to this. It starts with one standard preset, you can add as many presets as you like, and its documentation points to ready-to-use presets that people share on community.folivora.ai. The same documentation adds a fair warning: presets can contain scripts, so only import presets from people you trust.
Start with one kind of work
Trill’s Gesture Sets are each a few gestures for one kind of work. The first time you open Trill, the welcome suggests the sets that fit the apps already on your Mac, with the reason beside each (“Picked because you have Spotify”).
| Set | Where it works | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Everyday | Every app | 3-finger tap for a middle click; mouse buttons 4 and 5 for back and forward in browsers and Finder |
| Browser | Safari, Chrome, Arc, Firefox, Edge, Brave, Orion | 4-finger tap for a new tab; TipTap right or left for the next or previous tab; 4-finger swipe down to close a tab, up to reopen it |
| Windows | Every app | 4-finger swipe left or right for a half; 5-finger swipe up to fill the screen, down for its old size; 21 Hyper Key shortcuts |
| Media | Every app | 5-finger tap to play or pause; slide along the right edge for volume, the top edge for brightness |
| Writing | Pages, Word, Notes, Bear, Obsidian, Ulysses, iA Writer | TipTap left or right to undo or redo; 4-finger tap to start dictation |
| Developer | Xcode, VS Code, Cursor, Terminal, iTerm, Ghostty, Warp | TipTap right or left for the next or previous tab; 4-finger tap to show the terminal |
A TipTap means resting one finger on the trackpad and tapping beside it with another, to the left or the right. TipTap on a Mac covers it in more detail.
Pick by where your day goes, not by what looks clever. Someone who spends the day in Chrome gets more from Browser than from Windows; someone who lives in VS Code gets more from Developer. Everyday is a safe second set for almost anyone, because a middle click (open a link in a new tab, close a tab) is useful in any browser.
A first week that does not overwhelm
The trick is to change one habit at a time. A plan for the first week:
- Switch on one set, the one for the app you spend the most time in.
- Give Trill Accessibility when macOS asks. It needs it to press keys and clicks and to move windows. Until you allow it, the menu says “Trill can’t press keys or move windows yet” and offers Allow Accessibility.
- Use that set for a few days and nothing else. On a Force Touch trackpad you feel a Tick each time a gesture is recognised, so you know a gesture worked before you look at the screen.
- Add a second set only when you notice yourself wanting it.
- Then record one gesture of your own, for the thing you still reach for the keyboard to do.
If a gesture seems to do nothing, check where you are. A different tap, called Nothing here, means the gesture has nothing set for it in the app in front, which is normal for a set like Writing outside the writing apps. On a trackpad without Force Touch, Trill shows each gesture on screen instead of tapping back.
When a set meets a gesture macOS already uses
macOS keeps a few gestures of its own, such as four-finger swipes left and right to switch Spaces, and a swipe up for Mission Control. The Windows set’s 4-finger swipes left and right are the plain example, and the Browser set’s 4-finger swipe up can meet Mission Control. Everyday’s 3-finger tap clashes only if you have set Look Up to a three-finger tap in Trackpad settings. If macOS and Trill both answered the same gesture, both would fire.
Trill does not let that happen quietly. It keeps your gesture off, says why (“Blocked by macOS”), and offers the fix in one click: turn the gesture off in macOS, or pick another gesture for the action. Trill changes a macOS setting only when you click that fix, keeps a written record of every change, and Put back returns them exactly as they were. You do not need to know which pane of System Settings holds the gesture.
Adding your own, one at a time
Once a set feels natural, press New gesture and do the gesture on the trackpad. Trill names what it saw, you pick what it does, and the rule reads back as a sentence, such as “In Safari, a 5-finger tap plays or pauses music”. Each gesture works everywhere, or only in the apps you choose. How to make your own trackpad gestures on a Mac goes through it step by step.
Good first gestures are ones that no set and no macOS gesture already uses. A click in one corner of the trackpad (a real click, with one finger) can open Calendar or lock the screen. A swipe in from the left edge can show the desktop. More than a hundred actions are available, including pressing any keyboard shortcut, typing text, opening an app, a file or a link, and running an Apple Shortcut, so the gesture you record can do whatever you would otherwise reach for the keyboard or the menu bar to do.
Shortcuts work the same way. Caps Lock can become a Hyper Key (✦) that sends Control, Option, Shift and Command at once, a combination almost no app uses, so shortcuts you build on it rarely clash with anything. Hold ✦ for a moment and a cheat sheet shows every gesture and shortcut that works in the app in front, which helps while you are still learning your own setup.
Ways to turn it down
A simpler app should also be easy to quieten. From the menu bar you can pause Trill for 15 minutes, for 1 hour, or until you resume. Ignore these apps turns Trill off while one of them is in front, which suits games, remote desktops and virtual machines. And the Strength of the haptics goes from Off through Light and Medium to Strong, if a tick on every gesture is more than you want.
When you need more than a set
Sets cover common work. If what you want is Magic Mouse gestures, Stream Deck buttons, the Touch Bar, drawing gestures or long chains of actions, Trill does not do those, and BetterTouchTool does. At the time of writing (October 2026) it costs $15 for a Standard licence or $25 for Lifetime, depending on country and taxes, with a 45-day trial and one licence for all your personal Macs. Trill is $29 once, with a 24-hour trial and a key that works on up to 3 Macs. Trill vs BetterTouchTool sets the two side by side.
Questions
Can I bring my BetterTouchTool setup into Trill?
No. Trill does not import BetterTouchTool presets. Switch on the sets that match what you used, then record the few gestures that are left.
Do I have to switch on every set?
No. Each set is switched on separately with one click, so one or two is a fine place to start.
Will a Gesture Set change my macOS settings?
Only if you click a fix when Trill reports a clash. Every change is written down, and Put back returns them exactly as they were.
How long can I try Trill?
24 hours from the first launch, with every feature and no card needed. The menu shows the hours left.