Click a trackpad corner to run an action on a Mac

On its own, macOS uses a click in a trackpad corner for one thing: a right click, if you set Secondary click to the bottom right or bottom left corner in System Settings, Trackpad, Point & Click. To make a corner click do something else, such as lock the screen, open an app or press a keyboard shortcut, you need a gesture app. In Trill, a click with one finger in any of the four corners of the trackpad is a gesture you record yourself and give any action, in every app or only in the apps you choose.

This is about the corners of the trackpad under your finger, not the corners of the screen. The two are easy to confuse, so that comes first.

A trackpad corner is not a hot corner

A hot corner fires when you push the pointer into a corner of the screen. It is set in System Settings, Desktop & Dock, under Hot Corners, and it works with a mouse or a trackpad. Its weak point is accidents: the pointer drifts into a corner on its way to the Apple menu or the Dock, and the action fires. There is a fix for that, a modifier key held while choosing the action, covered in setting up hot corners without triggering them by accident.

A trackpad corner click is a physical click, pressing the trackpad down with one finger in one of its corners. The pointer can be anywhere on the screen, and it does not move. Nothing happens when your finger merely passes through a corner, because passing through is not a click.

That difference is the whole appeal. A hot corner is triggered by where the pointer goes, which you do all day without thinking. A corner click is triggered by something you do on purpose.

The corner macOS may already use

Before choosing a corner, check whether macOS has one of them.

1. Open System Settings and click Trackpad.
2. Click Point & Click.
3. Look at Secondary click. It can be a click or tap with two fingers, a click in the bottom right corner, a click in the bottom left corner, or off.

If yours is set to one of the bottom corners, that corner is your right click. Leave it as it is and record your own actions on the other three corners, so one click never has two meanings. If Secondary click uses two fingers, all four corners are free.

On a Force Touch trackpad, a click feels the same anywhere on the surface, so the top corners are as easy to click as the bottom ones. That matters, because the safest corner to give a job is one you never click by habit.

Recording a corner click in Trill

None of Trill’s six ready-made Gesture Sets uses corner clicks, so a corner click is always one you make.

1. Open Trill and press New gesture.
2. Click once in a corner of the trackpad with one finger: a real click, pressing down until it clicks, not a tap.
3. Trill names the gesture it saw. Check that it is the corner you meant.
4. Pick what the click does from Trill’s actions.
5. Choose whether it works everywhere or only in the apps you pick.
6. Read the rule back. Trill shows it as a sentence, so you can check it says what you intended.

If you have not yet allowed Accessibility, macOS asks once. A corner click needs it whatever the click does, because Trill hears the click itself through that permission; until it is allowed, a click in a corner is an ordinary click. When Accessibility is off, Trill’s menu says “Trill can’t press keys or move windows yet” and offers Allow Accessibility.

Corner clicks need a Force Touch trackpad. Trill tells a real click from a tap by the pressure under your finger, and only a Force Touch trackpad reports it, so on a trackpad without Force Touch a click in a corner stays an ordinary click. Apple puts Force Touch in most recent Mac laptops and in the rechargeable Magic Trackpads. On one of those, Trill taps back with a tick the moment it recognises the corner click, before the action runs.

While a corner has a job, a click there runs it instead of clicking. To click as usual, click a little further in from the corner.

What to put in a corner

Trill has more than a hundred actions, and any of them can go on a corner. Four corners is not many, so give them to things you do several times a day and would rather not hunt for. Some that suit a corner well:

Lock screen. A click in a top corner as you stand up from the desk locks the Mac. It is a deliberate movement, so it does not happen by accident while you type.

Show Desktop or Mission Control. One click to clear the windows away or see them all, without remembering which finger count macOS uses for which.

Open an app, a file or a link. A corner that opens the notes file you add to all day, or the app you switch to most.

Run an Apple Shortcut. If you have built a shortcut in the Shortcuts app, a corner click can run it, which turns one corner into a button for whatever that shortcut does.

A screenshot. The screenshot actions need Screen Recording permission, which Trill needs for nothing else.

Press keys. The catch-all. Any shortcut an app has, a corner can press, such as Command-L to jump to a browser’s address bar (tab ideas in closing, reopening and switching tabs with gestures).

Paste as plain text, Dark Mode, emoji or dictation. Smaller jobs that otherwise mean a trip to a menu.

The same corner, different jobs

Each gesture works everywhere or only in the apps you choose, so one corner can do one thing in one app and something else elsewhere. A top-right corner click might reload the page in your browser, and press a shortcut of your choice in your mail app. Trill’s own Gesture Sets work the same way: a TipTap right moves to the next tab in a browser and redoes in a writing app.

To see what each corner does in the app in front, hold Trill’s Hyper Key for a moment, if you use one, or choose Show cheat sheet from the menu bar menu. The cheat sheet lists every gesture and shortcut that works in that app.

If you record a click in the corner macOS uses for Secondary click, Trill keeps yours off, says why (“Blocked by macOS”) and offers the fix in one click: Turn it off in macOS, or Keep macOS’s. Turning it off ends the corner’s right click, and if right click with two fingers is off, Trill turns that on at the same time, so you are never left without a right click. Trill changes a macOS setting only when you click that fix, and Put back returns every change exactly as it was.

When you want the corners to be plain clicks again for a while, pause Trill from the menu bar for 15 minutes, for 1 hour, or until you resume. Apps you add to Ignore these apps, such as games, remote desktops and virtual machines, turn Trill off whenever they are in front.

Corner clicks in BetterTouchTool and Trill

Corner clicks are not unique to Trill. BetterTouchTool lists corner clicks and edge swipes among its trackpad gestures, alongside drawing gestures, and offers the same gestures on the Magic Mouse. It covers far more devices and features than Trill, with more than 600 built-in actions that can be chained into sequences. It also costs less at the time of writing (October 2026): $15 for a standard licence with two years of updates, or $25 for a lifetime licence, the exact price depending on country and taxes. Its trial is 45 days, and one licence covers all your personal Macs.

Trill’s case is simplicity. You record a corner click by doing it, the rule reads back as a sentence, a tick under your finger confirms it, and clashes with macOS come with a fix. Trill costs $29 once, for up to 3 Macs, and it is free for 24 hours from the first launch with every feature and no card.

Questions

Is a trackpad corner click the same as a hot corner?

No. A hot corner fires when the pointer reaches a corner of the screen. A trackpad corner click is a physical click with one finger in a corner of the trackpad, wherever the pointer happens to be.

Does a tap in the corner count?

No. Trill’s corner gesture is a real click with one finger, pressing the trackpad down, not a tap.

Can I keep the bottom-right corner as my right click?

Yes. If Secondary click is set to the bottom right corner, leave it there and give your own actions to the other three corners.

Does it work on a Magic Trackpad?

Yes, on a Magic Trackpad with Force Touch (the rechargeable models) and on a MacBook trackpad with Force Touch. A corner click needs one, because Trill tells a real click from a tap by its pressure; on a trackpad without Force Touch, a click in a corner stays an ordinary click.