How to Use Windows 10 Touchpad Gestures?

Use Windows 10 Touchpad Gestures

Have you got Precision Touchpad on your Windows 10? How to use Windows 10 Touchpad gestures for improving navigation and multitasking purposes? After the release of the trackpad edges of Windows 8, Microsoft rolled out the touchpad gestures in Windows 10 which are now useful for the desktop users. These gestures have been designed “Mac-like”. This means that they are similar to the trackpad gestures on a Mac and so very helpful in navigating the desktop as desired.

Unfortunately, if the existing laptop is not updated, you won't be able to use Windows 10 Touchpad gestures. Most of the Windows 10 devices are capable of doing so. Technically, this feature requires a “Precision Touchpad” which can't be enabled just by installing a new driver. Your PC manufacturer must comply with Microsoft’s precision touchpad specification and been certified by Microsoft.

Most of the touchpads provided in the past for Windows PC have been of poor quality. Though they work fine for moving the cursor around, but wouldn’t necessarily be capable of providing accurate data using multi-finger gestures. This fact ensures that the trackpads don’t accidentally trigger gestures while moving the cursor around. This is the reason why Microsoft doesn’t want PC manufacturers to provide a “precision touchpad” with systems. So, not all Windows 10 PC users can
use Windows 10 Touchpad gestures.

What is the significance of Precision Touchpad?

Precision Touchpad for Windows 10 is a design to overcome the limitations found with traditional touchpads. With this approach, manufacturers can build drivers that translate touchpad signals into mouse and gesture inputs. Specifically, Windows 10 can even understand the inputs directly. In a few words, it means that on devices with support hardware, this implementation provides more accurate and reliable pointer features. So, you can conveniently use Windows 10 Touchpad gestures.

If you are using a touchpad in Windows 10, you must be well aware of the basic single-finger tapping and two-finger scrolling gestures. Additionally, Windows 10 offers some extra gestures that you might have not tried.

Quick Note: Remember that some of the Touchpad gestures are only compatible with “Precision Touchpads”. Therefore, some of the gestures won’t work if you don't have that. In order to check whether your laptop is touch compatible or not, open the Settings app and go to Devices. Then, select Mouse and Touchpad. Here, you can find that your PC has a precision touchpad” under the “Touchpad” section.

Now, straightaway coming to the gestures! Here's the guide to use Windows 10 Touchpad gestures that are compatible and supported. 

• Tap one finger on the touchpad: This action selects an item (similar to left-clicking a mouse).
• Tap two fingers on the touchpad: This action shows more commands (similar to right-clicking a mouse).
• Swipe up or down with two fingers: This action scrolls a page up or down.
• Pinch or stretch out two fingers: This action zoom in or zoom out (magnify or shrink) the screen.
• Swipe up with three fingers: This will show all the recent activity and then launches Windows via Windows Timeline.
• Swipe down with three fingers: This action minimizes everything and directly shows the desktop.
• Swipe left or right with three fingers: Using this, you can switch between all windows that are currently open in different
• tabs (same as Alt+Tab).
• Tap three fingers on the touchpad: This action will open Cortana/search.
• Tap four fingers on the touchpad: This action will open Action Center.
• Swipe left or right with four fingers: Using this, you can switch between all virtual desktops.

Moreover, it might be possible that your touchpad is supporting a few other gestures also. It might give the ability to create your own through the specialized settings app. So, always make sure to check if your system offers those ones to use Windows 10 Touchpad gestures effectively.

Configuring the Gestures

Apart from the way of using Touchpad gestures, it's important to understand that these gestures can be configured from the Mouse and Touchpad section of the Settings app. You can enable or disable each of the individual gesture as you like, although they’re all enabled by default.

Other than choosing to enable or disable gestures, you can decide whether a three-finger tap launches Cortana or the Action Center. That’s how these gestures can be configured at the moment. However, you can also control other settings, like the cursor’s speed. Another setting disables the touchpad automatically when you have an external mouse plugged into your laptop.

Hope this guide is helpful for the users to use Windows 10 Touchpad gestures as required in the application.