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How to disable Control + Left Click = Right Click?

Holding the Control key during a Left Click will perform a Right Click. I want to disable this. I want Control + Left Click to perform a Left Click with a Control modifier. Then, I will have "Control + Left Click" available as a keymapping option in my IDE, browser, game, etc.


And no, the egregious response in How to disable Control + Left Click = Rig… - Apple Community, "Don't press Control" is not a solution, even if, astonishingly, it's endorsed as  "Apple recommended". Flames. Flames on the side of my face.



Posted on Jun 27, 2023 11:29 PM

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Posted on Jun 28, 2023 11:52 AM

You only have three options for the secondary click:


I've tried them all and with the Control key held down all give the same response with the left click on the mouse which is not what you want. Tell Apple what missing features you'd like restored or new features added to the system via Feedback - macOS - Apple.  



9 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 28, 2023 11:52 AM in response to scottfromsan mateo

You only have three options for the secondary click:


I've tried them all and with the Control key held down all give the same response with the left click on the mouse which is not what you want. Tell Apple what missing features you'd like restored or new features added to the system via Feedback - macOS - Apple.  



Jun 28, 2023 10:49 AM in response to Barney-15E

I've seen this response before and am baffled how it keeps being repeated that "there is no right mouse button." I know the term "gaslighting" is overused, but, here it seems perfectly apt. Perhaps you mean that as some apologist defense of the Apple OS / kernel having a concept of "there is no spoon" intrinsically embedded into its basic code. If so, that's no excuse. We're not using hockey pucks anymore... not that anyone ever should have in the first place.


I've installed "some third-party keyboard remapping software" called Karabiner and used it to transform the act of pressing what I promise you is the very real Right Mouse Button on my mouse while simultaneously holding my fleshy finger on the Control Key. Now, thanks to what I suspect is the antiquated kernel code has become simply a "Click" despite the remapping explicitly exerting a "Control" modifier.


Does anyone know of an actual solution, whether using Karabiner, some other remapper, or soliciting Apple to fix this intrinsic bug?


Jun 29, 2023 5:26 AM in response to scottfromsan mateo

We seem to be talking past each other as I am talking about an event which combines a "left mouse button click" and the "control key". While you continue to discuss a "secondary click." I believe I understand what you mean when you say "there isn't but one button." And I think I've done a good job of bridging between your POV and that of every configuration menu in every application, all of which subscribe to the concept of "Left Click." So... um. I'll noodle on what further language can better convey my meaning and get back to you.

There is only a mouse click. It is neither left nor right. It can be modified to achieve a secondary click by holding down the control key. Here is what I mean by Secondary click (I don't have a Magic Mouse, so can only provide the screenshot of the Trackpad settings):

It's not Windows nor Linux. It is macOS and has been that way since at least 2001 when OS X was introduced. I don't think it existed in System 1.0 to 9.x, but I can't remember.

So, [sad trumpet noise], no, "You can send Apple feedback suggesting they change over 30 years of UI consistency in order to make your game work." I don't know what UI consistency you're describing.

The UI driven by a mouse with a single button, and now, no real buttons at all. There has only ever been a mouse click, neither left, nor right, nor center.

However, the Developer documentation for the API does include "right click," so perhaps in some future OS will have left button/right button hooks, but I'm not sure how well tapping left side/right side of Magic Mouse/Trackpad would be very clean. You can set the Secondary Click in the bottom corners of the Trackpad.

Jun 28, 2023 3:37 AM in response to scottfromsan mateo

Ctrl-click ≠ right-click because there is no right mouse button.

Ctrl-click is the secondary click. It isn't substituting for something called a right-click. It is the defined secondary click. There are gestures to replicate the secondary click, but they are alternatives that generate a ctrl-click.

You would have to use some third-party keyboard remapping software to change it to perform some other action, but I don't know what that would do to your game response.

Jun 28, 2023 11:07 AM in response to dialabrain

scottfromsan mateo wrote:

I've seen this response before and am baffled how it keeps being repeated that "there is no right mouse button."

Please post a link to an Apple Mouse with a right mouse button.

I've installed "some third-party keyboard remapping software" called Karabiner and used it to transform the act of pressing what I promise you is the very real Right Mouse Button on my mouse

You shouldn't have to use Karabiner to do anything with that. If macOS detects a third-party mouse with a right button, it will convert that right mouse button into secondary click, i.e., ctrl-click. ← Notice I don't say, "ctrl-Left-click" as there isn't a left or right click as there isn't but one button. It's just a click. You can get a secondary click on an Apple Mouse or Trackpad if you enable the gesture in the settings.

Does anyone know of an actual solution, whether using Karabiner, some other remapper, or soliciting Apple to fix this intrinsic bug?

Your game should be able to intercept those two inputs and interpret them as you want.

You can send Apple feedback suggesting they change over 30 years of UI consistency in order to make your game work.

Jun 28, 2023 6:20 PM in response to Barney-15E

I've used the Apple Magic Mouse with my aforementioned fleshy finger and while it has no physically distinct left or right buttons, it did indeed seem to share the prevailing sentiment that every mouse since the hockey puck rightly possesses both a right and a left button. I won't insult you by posting the requested link to this Apple Mouse unless you insist I do so.


We seem to be talking past each other as I am talking about an event which combines a "left mouse button click" and the "control key". While you continue to discuss a "secondary click." I believe I understand what you mean when you say "there isn't but one button." And I think I've done a good job of bridging between your POV and that of every configuration menu in every application, all of which subscribe to the concept of "Left Click." So... um. I'll noodle on what further language can better convey my meaning and get back to you.


Lastly, while there is absolutely nothing wrong about games and I could very well have been pursuing this solution for a game, no, I'm not. See, most games I play that were written to run natively on Mac indeed recognize what the Left and Right mouse buttons and let me configure one action for a left click, one action for a right click, and amazingly yet another different action for a Control Left click.


No, I'm trying to get a desktop application which currently maps "opt-left-click" to an particular action. For legitimate reasons that do not merit debate, I wish to change it to "control-left-click"


So, [sad trumpet noise], no, "You can send Apple feedback suggesting they change over 30 years of UI consistency in order to make your game work." I don't know what UI consistency you're describing.



How to disable Control + Left Click = Right Click?

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