Disable Dictionary from Clickpad - Macbook Air M2

Hello, whenever I use my mousepad for any reason, the dictionary automatically comes up. It makes it effectively worthless to use my mousepad.


The standard solution did not work:

System Preferences

Keyboards

Services

Shortcuts

Searching --> Dictionary

<Turn off feature>


The macbook still produces a dictionary whenever I try to hold the pad down for any purpose. Can anyone please assist?


MacBook Air, macOS 13.4

Posted on Sep 4, 2023 04:34 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 5, 2023 06:44 PM

Sorry, no the issue persists. When I am highlighting text, if my finger moves at all, it stops the highlight command and shows the dictionary definition.


4 replies

Sep 13, 2023 05:50 PM in response to connorheadden

Issue still persists. Is this just a feature of the Macbook Air M2?

Are we unable to highlight text with one finger on the track pad? I can very carefully highlight text if I touch the corner lightly and use my other hand to highlight the text. If at any point during the process, either of my fingers presses down, the highlight text command terminates, and the text is instead scanned by a dictionary program.


Following up for any way to disable this, because it is difficult to work this way.

Sep 5, 2023 01:53 PM in response to connorheadden

Hey there connorheadden,


We'd like to help by learning more about what's happening, along with ruling out some possible causes:


  1. From what you described with the built-in trackpad on your MacBook Air, our own trackpad operates in the same way for the dictionary when pressing/holding down upon a word. You also mentioned that you turned off the dictionary in 'Searching' preferences, but we do not see this option when searching through our own System Preferences. Where exactly did you turn off the 'Dictionary' option under System Preferences?
  2. Has this behavior always been the case when pressing/holding down on the trackpad in your Mac, and if not, when did this start?
  3. We see you have macOS 13.4 installed, but the latest version is macOS 13.5.1. In case you needed it, this link shows how to first back up, then update: Update macOS on Mac


Cheers!

Sep 5, 2023 04:27 PM in response to bruno75

Thank you and I apologize for the lack of clarity in my previous post.


I believe this has been resolved with the steps below. Today, this issue is not occurring when I highlight text. Perhaps, the only missing step was the good old fashioned - reset.


  1. The steps I followed are detailed in the post, to show that I unchecked a box for the dictionary in System Preferences. System Preferences

Keyboards

Services

Shortcuts

Searching --> Dictionary

<Turn off feature>


This turn off feature step was clicked, so I phrased this as: "turned off the 'Dictionary'."


2) This behavior has persisted since I purchased the equipment one week ago.


3) I believe it's completely up to date on its OS because of the purchase date.


I followed along with this post from the Apple Support Community.


How to disable troublesome dictionary - Apple Community


I will reach back out if the issue returns, thank you for your attention to this issue.


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Disable Dictionary from Clickpad - Macbook Air M2

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