I'm using macOS 15.5 and BTT 5.444. I can't get the Pinch With Thumb and 3 Fingers trackpad gesture working - it just won't trigger. I even tried resetting the permissions by executing:
sudo tccutil reset All com.hegenberg.BetterTouchTool
...and after I launched BTT, I gave it all the permissions it requested. I turned off the toggle System Settings > Trackpad > More Gestures > Launchpad, because otherwise the four-finger pinch gesture brings out Launchpad. The following is the text I get by right-clicking the trigger (that I've been testing this with) in BTT and selecting Copy:
Is this the only gesture you have setup in BTT and it is not working? Do you see it in the "Recently used"? What action are you trying to execute using this trigger? I've just tried on my end and it is working, however I'm on Version: 5.484 (2025061702)
I have 7 trackpad gestures, 2 keyboard gestures, and the Doubleclick Main Menubar gesture, all working just fine. I've never tried using the four-finger pinch gesture before because it's been the system default one for bringing out Launchpad. Now that Launchpad might be going away in macOS Tahoe, I started testing if I could use that gesture for something else.
I've been testing it by remapping the Pinch With Thumb and 3 Fingers trackpad gesture to the action Send Keyboard Shortcut: ⌘N and testing it in a new TextEdit document, where that keyboard shortcut creates a new TextEdit document in a new tab, but doing the gesture there does nothing. The Recently Used sidebar section in BTT doesn't show that gesture being triggered either. But the fact that it's working for you, makes me think I should try to completely remove BTT and reinstall. I also just upgraded to BTT 5.468 and that didn't fix it.
Yes, I'd say I can mimic your four-finger pinch gesture perfectly, but the Live View's Last recognized gesture shows ------ (now that I just uninstalled BTT, installed the latest version from the website, and created only the Pinch With Thumb And 3 Fingers trackpad gesture remapped to the keyboard shortcut ⌘N).
By the way, I uninstalled BTT by moving the following to the Trash:
After having reinstalled BTT (version 5.479), I just now also quit BTT and executed the following (again) to reset permissions:
sudo tccutil reset All com.hegenberg.BetterTouchTool
When prompted after launching BTT, I gave BTT the following permissions in System Settings > Privacy & Security:
Accessibility
Automation: Shortcuts Events
Bluetooth
Screen & System Audio Recording
I don't have a mouse. The settings at System Settings > Trackpad are as follows:
Point & Click
Tracking speed: 3/9
Click: Light
Quiet Click: On
Force Click and haptic feedback: On
Look up & data detectors: Force Click with One Finger
Secondary click: Click or Tap with Two Fingers
Tap to click: On
Scroll & Zoom
Natural scrolling: On
Zoom in or out: On
Smart zoom: Off
Rotate: On
More Gestures
Swipe between pages: Off
Swipe between full-screen applications: Off
Notification Center: On
Mission Control: Off
App Expose: Off
Launchpad: Off
Show Desktop: Off
The same issue I have with the Pinch With Thumb And 3 Fingers gesture presumably applies to the Spread With Thumb And 3 Fingers gesture as well, because I can't get that to trigger either.
I'm using the Apple's Magic Trackpad, 2nd generation (Lightning), connected via a Lightning-to-USB-C cable to an M1 MacBook Air. By the way, I just tried it connected via Bluetooth, and it didn't make any difference.
It turns out I can successfully trigger the Pinch With Thumb And 3 Fingers gesture maybe one time out of 50-150 attempts (it's a rough estimate because the sample size of successful attempts is really small). This same rate of success seems to hold both when I'm using the Magic Trackpad while the MacBook is in clamshell mode, and when I'm using the MacBook's internal trackpad while the laptop's lid is open, the Magic Trackpad turned off, and the external display disconnected.
I don't notice any difference between how I perform the gesture on the successful attempts and the unsuccessful ones - it just seems to randomly work sometimes. Weird.
Mhm it seems to work fine on my USB-C Magic Trackpad.
Could you check whether disabling this setting makes any difference? You can also go to Help => Export Diagnostic Debug Information and send the result to me (andreas@folivora.ai), then I can check whether there are any issues with the config.
Disabling the Thumb / Palm Handling at BTT Settings > Trackpad > Palm/Thumb Recognition didn't seem to make any difference (i.e. I can still trigger the gesture only once per ~120 attempts, as I mentioned in this post). I sent the exported Diagnostic Debug Information to andreas@folivora.ai.
"unfortunately" even with your exact same settings and the same trackpad it works perfectly here.
Have you checked whether it might be an issue with the app you are using it with not accepting cmd+N?
You could check the "HUD Overlay" option to see whether the gesture is recognized:
Earlier, I've been testing the gesture in TextEdit, where the mapped ⌘N keyboard shortcut creates a new text document in a new tab. Just now, I tested the gesture in a Finder window, where pressing ⌘N creates a new tab, and I must have done the Pinch With Thumb And 3 Fingers gesture more than 400 times (I stopped counting) before Finder finally created a new tab. Then, I ticked the HUD overlay checkbox Show when gesture is triggered and added the HUD Title & Detail Text in the BTT configuration for the trigger. Then I tried it again in Finder, and this time it took maybe 80 attempts to trigger the gesture, indicated both by the fact that a new Finder tab was created and I saw the HUD overlay pop up with my title and the detail text.
I got really lucky on my first try capturing the video, and managed to somehow trigger the gesture in only 38 attempts (it's never happened with so few attempts before). Here's how that happened:
