ris58h / touch-tab

Switch apps with trackpad on macOS.

Touch-Tab

Switch apps with trackpad on macOS. Use 3-fingers swipe right or 3-fingers swipe left to switch between apps. Hold after the swipe or swipe slowly to show App Switcher UI.

Installation

1. Download the latest Touch-Tab.zip from Releases page.
2. Unzip the archive and move Touch-Tab.app into the Applications folder.
3. The app is ad-hoc signed so when you run the app macOS will warn you: "Touch-Tab" can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software. Right-click the app and click Open, a pop-up will appear, click Open again.
4. The app needs access to global trackpad events. Allow Touch-Tab to control your computer in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accesibility. If you had Touch-Tab installed before you may need to remove Touch-Tab from the Accessibility list first and add it again.
5. Disable 3-finger swipe between full-screen apps or make it 4-finger in System Settings > Trackpad > More Gestures > Swipe between full-screen apps.

Usage

• Use 3-fingers swipe right or 3-fingers swipe left to switch between apps.
• Hold after the swipe or swipe slowly to show App Switcher UI. Pro tip: you can use 2-fingers scroll to switch apps in App Switcher faster.

Hide Status Bar Item

Holding ⌘ drag the item away from the status bar until you see ✖️ (cross icon) then let it go. To recover the item just open the app one more time.

Troubleshooting

"Touch-Tab" can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software

Right-click the app and click Open, a pop-up will appear, click Open again.

It's running but doesn't work

• Check that Touch-Tab is allowed to control your computer in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accesibility. If you had Touch-Tab installed before you may need to remove Touch-Tab from the Accessibility list first and add it again.
• Check that 3-finger swipe is disabled in System Settings > Trackpad > More Gestures > Swipe between full-screen apps.

3-finger swipe scrolls a content

It's a known issue. The workaround is to setup Mission Control or App Expose to use 3-finger swipe in System Settings > Trackpad > More Gestures.

It still doesn't work

Please create an issue.

touch-tab's Issues

Cannot install touch-tab on mac os sonoma version 14.1.1

Trying to install this app on mac os sonoma version 14.1.1 but getting this error.

Edit: Found correct steps in the readme, sorry for any inconvenience.

Integrate with popular open-source app AltTab

First off, thanks so much for making this tool! I recently just switched over from Windows to MacOS and swiping with three fingers to switch between windows became nearly second nature for me. This tool bringing some of that functionality over to Mac is truly a godsend!!

One thing that I've been missing though is the ability to switch between windows instead of apps (similar to how another popular open source mac app AltTab does it). I often have multiple windows of the same app open (especially web browsers and Finder windows), so the ability to switch between them quickly would be really helpful. A similar issue was brought up there to implement this, but it looks like its incredible developer, lwouis sadly doesn't have the bandwidth to add it.

This is probably a stretch, but would it be possible to integrate the three-finger swipe functionality of this app with the window switching of AltTab? Thanks so much for all your time developing and maintaining this, and for being open to suggestions!

installation issue

app version: 1.5.0
Mac Details:
Apple M3 Pro
14.3 (23D56)

Show menu item to open Accessibility settings if user didn't give access to control a computer

Option to add to Login Items

Support other gestures

Some users ask for 4-finger (or even 5-finger) swipes to use Touch-Tab.

Speed scrolling

Would it be possible to add a setting that allows you to adjust the speed at which you can scroll through the apps? It feels quite slow to me

'About Touch-Tab' menu item

Feature request

Hi can you also add functionality to switch between multiple windows of a same app (cmd+shift+’) by using trackpad gestures or tip tapping (with one finger locked). Also can you add feature that allows the app to open at login.

Thanks!

Unminimize minimized windows on select

https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/zh4izh/comment/izrytr2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Is there any way to have it pull apps out the dock when they are minimised?

Content scrolling

While using three finger gesture the contents of the window under the cursor is being scrolled. Very annoying.

Warn a user when Touch-Tab hasn't access to control computer in Privacy & Security > Accessibility

We could show a different icon (for example with ! sign) to warn a user.

Only cycles through apps when swiping left, swiping right only cycles two apps

This might be a system issue, but when I swipe left the app works as expected (awesome), but when I swipe right, it goes back and forth between the top-most app and the one I previously used.

Cmd-shift-tab cycles through all apps, cmd-tab only two.

Only Responds when Window is Open

It worked as expected up to 1.1, but beginning with 1.2, it only works for me when I have the "About Touch-Tab" window open and focused. Once the window loses focus swiping does nothing. I've verified that Accessibility is enabled and that 3-finger swipe is disabled. Rolling back to 1.1 resolves this (until the computer is put to sleep, but that's probably unrelated).

I'm seeing this on an M1 MacBook Air running Ventura 13.3.1.

Hide Menu Bar Item

Could you make an option to hide the menu bar item? This could be implemented like MiddleClick-Ventura

While holding ⌘, drag the icon away from the status bar until you see a ✖️ (cross icon)
Let it go
To recover the item, just open MiddleClick when it's already running

Add default MacOS installer

Make a default installer (that drag app into applications)

Add Touch-Tab to Homebrew

Only Desktop Apps

Could you make an option to only scroll between apps that are in the same desktop??

Haptic feedback

Touch-Tab could provide haptic feedback when switching apps.

Touch-Tab doesn't select an app when Touch-Tab is activated from App Expose

Steps to reproduce:

• Open App Expose
• Swipe to activate Touch-Tab.
• Release fingers from a trackpad before App Expose is gone.

Screen.Recording.2023-03-14.at.16.20.19.mov

Feature request: switch tabs

It would be very nice to have an option to switch application tabs instead of applications with 3 fingers swipe.

Icon for dark theme

Your icon blends in color with a dark theme.

Quick solution: just add a white background for your icon

AltTab mac app support

I want to preface this by saying the functionality of touch-tab works well on its own, however with the AltTab mac app installed it starts to lose its ability to switch between apps, it would be great if it is possible to use both apps simultaneously for ultimate app switching productivity