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BetterTouchTool presets vs ready-made Gesture Sets

· 8 min read

A BetterTouchTool preset is a container: it saves your complete gesture and shortcut configuration to a single file, so you can restore it later, keep several and switch them on and off, or share one with someone else. A Gesture Set in Trill is a starting point: a few ready-made gestures for one kind of work, switched on with one click. Presets suit people who build their own setup. Gesture Sets suit people who would rather not build one at all.

They solve different problems, so it is worth knowing what each one actually holds before deciding which way of working fits you.

What a BetterTouchTool preset is

BetterTouchTool’s documentation puts it simply: “Presets let you save your complete gesture/shortcut configuration to a single file and restore it later.” A few details from the same page explain how they behave.

  • You start with one. “BetterTouchTool starts with one standard preset, but you can add as many as you like.”
  • They can be layered. Presets can be enabled or disabled at any time, so you can keep one for everyday use and another for a particular job, and switch the second on only when you need it.
  • New work has a home. New triggers go into the Master Preset.
  • They are files. A preset exports as JSON, which makes it easy to back up, move to another Mac or send to someone.
  • Other people make them. In the documentation’s words, “There are some great ready-to-use presets on https://community.folivora.ai”.

That last point comes with a warning from the same page, and it is a fair one: “presets can contain all kinds of scripts, which could do malicious things”, so import presets only from people you trust. A preset is not just a list of gestures. It can carry anything BetterTouchTool can do, and BetterTouchTool can do a great deal: its site lists more than 600 built-in actions, and scripting is one of its feature areas.

So a preset is best understood as a save file. It holds whatever you, or the person who made it, put in it. The thinking about which gestures to use and what they should do has already happened by the time a preset exists.

What a Gesture Set is

A Gesture Set is Trill’s answer to a different question: what should a new user switch on first? There are six, each a few gestures for one kind of work, and each switched on with one click. When you first open Trill, the welcome suggests the sets that fit the apps already on your Mac, and says why (“Picked because you have Spotify”).

  • Everyday, in every app: a three-finger tap is a middle click, and mouse buttons 4 and 5 are back and forward in browsers and Finder (in other apps the buttons pass through untouched).
  • Browser, in Safari, Chrome, Arc, Firefox, Edge, Brave and Orion: a four-finger tap opens a new tab, TipTap right or left moves to the next or previous tab, a four-finger swipe down closes the tab, and a four-finger swipe up reopens the tab you closed.
  • Windows, in every app: a four-finger swipe left or right sends the window to the left or right half, a five-finger swipe up fills the screen, and a five-finger swipe down puts it back to its old size. The set also brings 21 Hyper Key shortcuts, such as ✦C to centre a window and ✦D, ✦F and ✦G for thirds.
  • Media, in every app: a five-finger tap plays or pauses, sliding a finger along the right edge changes the volume, and sliding along the top edge changes the brightness.
  • Writing, in Pages, Word, Notes, Bear, Obsidian, Ulysses and iA Writer: TipTap left or right is undo or redo, and a four-finger tap starts dictation.
  • Developer, in Xcode, VS Code, Cursor, Terminal, iTerm, Ghostty and Warp: TipTap right or left moves to the next or previous tab, and a four-finger tap shows the terminal (VS Code’s and Cursor’s own terminal panel; from Xcode it brings Terminal forward).

(TipTap means resting one finger on the trackpad and tapping beside it with another, to the left or the right. TipTap on a Mac explains it in full.)

You can have more than one set on at once. Where two sets use the same gesture, such as a four-finger tap, they use it in different apps, so a four-finger tap opens a tab in Safari, starts dictation in Pages and shows the terminal in VS Code.

The real difference: who does the designing

The hard part of any gesture setup is not the clicking. It is deciding which gestures are worth having, which fingers each one uses, and which apps it should work in, without stepping on gestures you already rely on.

With BetterTouchTool presets, that design work is yours, or it belongs to whoever made the preset you imported. That is the point of BetterTouchTool: it gives you a very large set of triggers and actions and lets you build exactly what you want. A preset then keeps that work safe and portable. If you enjoy building your own setup, or you have particular needs, that freedom is worth a lot.

With Gesture Sets, the design work has been done for you, on a deliberately narrow scale. Each set is a handful of gestures covering the everyday requests: a middle click, tab gestures in a browser, window halves, play and pause. You can switch on a set in the time it takes to read its name, and switch it off again just as quickly.

Gesture Sets are not the whole of Trill, either. When you want something a set does not cover, you press New gesture and do the gesture on the trackpad. Trill names the gesture it saw, you pick what it does from more than a hundred actions, and the rule reads back as a sentence (“In Safari, a 5-finger tap plays or pauses music”). Your own gestures sit alongside the sets you have switched on, and how to make your own trackpad gestures on a Mac walks through it.

When a ready-made gesture meets a macOS gesture

A set made by someone else has to cope with how your Mac is already configured, and macOS keeps gestures of its own. On a Mac with macOS’s standard trackpad settings, two of the sets meet them straight away.

The Windows set uses four-finger swipes left and right for window halves, and in macOS’s standard settings those swipes also move between Spaces (Swipe between full-screen applications, under More Gestures). The Browser set’s four-finger swipe up, which reopens a closed tab, is also macOS’s swipe up for Mission Control. The Everyday set’s three-finger tap for middle click meets macOS only if Look up & data detectors, in System Settings, Trackpad, Point & Click, has been set to Tap with Three Fingers, which is not the standard setting.

If both answered, one swipe would snap the window and switch Space at the same moment. So when one of your gestures is one macOS is using, Trill keeps its own gesture off, shows “Blocked by macOS” with the reason, and offers the fix in one click: turn the gesture off in macOS, or pick another gesture. Trill changes a macOS setting only when you click that fix. Every change is written down, and Put back returns them exactly as they were.

BetterTouchTool’s own guidance on the same situation is: “If you assign a gesture macOS already uses, you can disable the system version in System Settings to avoid both firing.” Either way, the principle is the same: one gesture, one job.

Moving a setup to another Mac

Both apps let you carry your setup in a file.

  • BetterTouchTool: a preset exports as JSON, and you import it on the other Mac.
  • Trill: Export saves your gestures, shortcuts and layouts as one file, and Import loads it on another Mac. Before it loads anything, Trill saves the current setup in Backups. Any scripts or app links in a loaded file stay off until you switch them on, a similar caution to the one the BetterTouchTool documentation gives about scripts in presets.

The two formats do not cross over. Trill does not import BetterTouchTool presets or settings. If you are moving from one to the other, the practical path is to switch on the Gesture Set or two closest to how you work, then record the few gestures you used most. If both apps are still running while you try Trill, turn a gesture off in one of them, or both will answer it.

Which suits you

Presets fit you if you already have a BetterTouchTool setup you are happy with, you use several of its devices (a Magic Mouse, a Stream Deck, the Touch Bar, a remote), you like having different setups for different jobs, or you want to try the ready-to-use presets other people share. BetterTouchTool also costs less at the time of writing (October 2026), $15 or $25, with a 45-day trial and one licence for all your personal Macs.

Gesture Sets fit you if what you want is a trackpad that does a few more useful things, today, without designing anything. Trill costs $29 once, works on up to three Macs, and has a 24-hour trial with every feature, so an afternoon with the sets switched on tells you whether they suit the way you work.

Questions

Can Trill import a BetterTouchTool preset?

No. There is no import from BetterTouchTool. Switch on the closest Gesture Set and record the few gestures you used most.

Can I have several Gesture Sets on at the same time?

Yes. Everyday, Windows and Media work in every app; Browser, Writing and Developer only in the apps they list. Where two sets share a gesture, they use it in different apps.

Where do people share BetterTouchTool presets?

The BetterTouchTool documentation points to community.folivora.ai for ready-to-use presets, and adds that presets can contain scripts, so you should only import presets from people you trust.

Do I have to use a Gesture Set in Trill?

No. The sets are a quick start. You can leave them all off and make every gesture yourself with New gesture, for every app or only the apps you choose.