Using mielwm
Trackpad and mouse
Swipe between workspaces with three fingers, and use the pointer to move windows and the canvas.
On this page
Swipe between workspaces
Three fingers left go to the next workspace, three fingers right to the previous one, the same directions as Spaces. Each swipe moves one workspace, and a Force Touch trackpad gives a click you can feel when it does. At the first or last workspace nothing happens, and there's no click.
Turn it on or off with Settings > Trackpad & mouse > Swipe between workspaces. It's on by default.
macOS's own three-finger swipe
macOS swipes between full-screen apps with three fingers too. With both on, the screen does a small bounce as you swipe. Set macOS's gesture to four fingers under System Settings > Trackpad > More Gestures > Swipe between full-screen applications. Settings > Trackpad & mouse shows a warning whenever the two overlap, with an Open Trackpad settings… button that takes you there.
Three-finger drag, an Accessibility setting, also uses three fingers. With both on, swipes and drags get in each other's way, so pick one.
Does it slow anything down?
No. To count your fingers, mielwm looks at each trackpad touch on its way to the app under the pointer, which takes a few microseconds. It doesn't hold touches back or record them. SwipeAeroSpace works the same way. Turning swipes off removes the hook completely.
In the overview
| Gesture | What it does |
|---|---|
| Two-finger scroll | Pan the canvas, under your fingers. |
| Pinch | Zoom around the pointer. |
| ⌘ or ⌃ + scroll | Zoom, for mice and trackpads alike. |
| Click | Go to a window. |
| Drag a window | Move it, also onto another workspace. |
| Drag the empty canvas | Pan, with momentum. |
| Hover | Select the window and show its name. |
Settings > Trackpad & mouse > Use the pointer in the overview turns all of this off, if you'd rather drive the overview by keyboard only. Panning speed and Zoom speed, in the same section, set how far a drag pans and how fast the wheel zooms, from a quarter to four times the default.
Anywhere
| Gesture | What it does |
|---|---|
| ⌃⌥ + left drag | Move the window under the pointer. |
| ⌃⌥ + right drag | Resize it, from the nearest corner. |
| ⌃⌥ + scroll | Zoom the canvas. Zooming out at 100% opens the overview there. |
| Middle drag | Pan the canvas. A middle click without a drag still clicks. |
Settings > Trackpad & mouse > Move and resize windows picks other keys than ⌃⌥, such as ⌃⌘. The same keys with the scroll wheel zoom the canvas.
Holding ⌃ alone and scrolling is left to macOS, which uses it for Accessibility Zoom.