6.235 to 6.259
New Gestures
- Long Touch gestures (1–5 fingers) for trackpad and Magic Mouse — triggers after holding fingers stationary for a
configurable duration
- Circle gestures (clockwise/counter-clockwise) for trackpad and Magic Mouse — draw circles with one finger to
trigger actions, with configurable circle count and shape tolerance
AI Assistant
- Added Codex CLI and OpenCode CLI as AI backend options (no API key needed)
- New Safari Automation skill for browser control and web scraping
- Custom prompt blocks — define reusable text blocks, insert with {BLOCK:name} placeholders
- AI config changes now take effect immediately without restarting the chat
- Improved accuracy when creating/modifying triggers and actions
- Added GPT-5.4 as default model
Smooth Scrolling
- Replaced multiple advanced settings with a single Smoothness slider (0–1)
- Fixed rubber banding, swipe navigation, and momentum interruption issues in Safari
- Fixed sluggish response when reversing scroll direction
Floating Menus
- New "Steal Keyboard Focus On Hover" option for menus with text input
- Drawer widget now shows up to 3 lines of text
Logitech Keyboards
- Fixed Fn key inversion (swap) sending inverted values
- Fixed Fn inversion being ignored when set to "off"
- Improved host channel detection on multi-host keyboards (e.g. MX Keys S)
Menu Bar Status Item Management
- Improved performance — unchanged items are now cached, reducing CPU usage
Other Notable Fixes
- Fixed conditional actions (If/Else) causing incorrect execution order
- Improved Apple Shortcuts reliability with automatic fallback methods
- Fixed clipboard contents saved in wrong format
- Improved MIDI initialization stability
- Customizable preferences toolbar (right-click to rearrange)
- Animations now respect macOS "Reduce Motion" setting
2 Likes
6.271
Adds a filter/search option at the top of the floating menu configuration to make it easier to find specific settings
1 Like
6.295
In the current alphas (e.g. 6.295) I have added a plugin manager that shows all loaded plugins. You can now also ask the BTT AI configuration assistant to create new action plugins and new trigger plugins. For example "Create a trigger plugin that recognizes when finder has been the active app for more than 2 seconds" or "Create a new action plugin that compresses the selected file in finder". All of these only work if the Xcode command line tools are installed.
Trigger plugins are listed in the "Automations, Named & Other Triggers" section in BTT. Action plugins are automatically listed in the action selector.
Example with an AI-generated trigger and action plugin:
6.317
Updated the design of the AI assistants a bit and made it better at creating custom plugins for BetterTouchTool
4 Likes
6.327
I needed a better way to control my Apple TV's from macOS so this version adds an Apple TV Remote Control action and an action to trigger specific TV remote control actions (media buttons, launching apps, etc.) via any BTT Trigger.
Note this version is pretty experimental because lots of other unrelated things changed internally
1 Like
6.359 - summarizing recent changes:
AI Assistant
- Redesigned setup wizard with three clear paths: Cloud API, Local Model, or CLI Tool. Built-in support for LM Studio, Ollama, Jan, LocalAI, Apple Foundation Models, plus Claude Code CLI presets (Sonnet 4.5, Opus 4.6, Haiku 4.5). Includes a Fetch Models button, Test Connection, and no API key requirement for local servers.
- MCP server lets external clients (Claude Code, Codex) use your configured BTT assistants — with one-click Codex plugin installer, a configurable port, and per-client sessions.
- Skills system: skills can be Active, Optional, or Off. The AI can request optional skills mid-conversation via inline Allow/Decline cards. Skills are organized into searchable, categorized groups.
- Assistants now support multiple model configurations and theme color presets (8 colors).
- Redesigned chat UI: timeline-style tool calls, custom tool icons, brain-pulse "Thinking" indicator, screen-reader support, faster startup, and better dark-mode contrast.
- CLI backends (Claude/Codex/OpenCode) can now act as fallback models, and starting a new chat properly resets server-side conversation state.
New Triggers
- Accelerometer triggers (Apple Silicon MacBooks) — axis thresholds, shake detection, and chassis tap/knock/hard-hit detection with adjustable sensitivity (1–100) and multi-tap counts. Includes a live sensor view.
- Power Mode Changed trigger — fires when macOS energy mode switches between Automatic, Low Power, and High Power. Sets a
power_mode variable.
- Allow Parallel Execution option — run all matching duplicate triggers at once instead of showing the conflict menu.
Key Sequences
- New Key Sequence Visualizer — a live debug window showing all active sequences as you type, with match quality sorting and explanations for why a sequence was ruled out.
- The recorder no longer auto-enters recording mode when editing an existing sequence.
Drawing & Mouse Gestures
- Direction-aware line gesture recognition — straight-line gestures are now matched by their actual drawn direction, dramatically improving accuracy for multi-direction line setups.
- Smoother stroke rendering with curve interpolation and improved performance for long strokes.
New Actions
- Quit Specific Application — quit any app by name, with optional Force Quit.
- Send Keyboard Shortcut gained two options: include currently held modifiers and send at the lowest possible system level (helps with apps that ignore standard simulated events).
- Send Shortcut to Specific App can now target the active/frontmost app or the app under the cursor.
- Find Text on Screen now stores
last_find_text_on_screen_result and last_find_text_on_screen_success variables, supports continuing on no-match, and lists all detected text when nothing matches.
Scrolling
- New Disable / Reduce Scroll Acceleration modifier for linear 1:1 scrolling on mice, trackpads, and Magic Mouse.
- Per-axis filtering for scroll modifiers (horizontal-only or vertical-only).
- Multiple smooth-scrolling fixes: reverse-direction glitch, fast-scroll stutter, momentum/ease-out behavior, and false button+scroll triggers on momentum mice.
Apple TV Remote
- Fully inline configuration of Apple TV actions (device, button, media command, app) without opening the full configurator.
- Auto-connects to paired devices when the remote opens, with a Pair button and faster repeated commands via connection reuse.
Conditions & Variables
- New condition variables: Audio Output Device, Audio Input Device, Keyboard Input Source, Connected Screen Count, Is Charging, and
currently_active_modifier_keys (distinguishes left/right side).
- Drag-and-drop reordering of conditions and groups in the rule editor.
- New "Keyboard" category in the rule editor.
- Significantly faster built-in variables list (expensive lookups only run for visible rows).
- "Show Running Processes" button replaces the raw text dump.
Floating Menus
- Content-fit menus no longer briefly appear at the wrong size before snapping into place.
- Fixed item sizing in row/column layouts so minimum height is respected.
Other
- New
.bttjsonplugin format for distributing plugins as simple JSON files.
- AI Model Browser now lists models from many more providers, with an API Type column.
- Stream Deck preset import fixes for fixed row/column buttons.
- Logitech receiver re-detection fix after sleep/reconnect.
- Caps Lock Hyper Key no longer gets stuck after wake.
- Sidebar collapse/expand reliability fixes.
