The best Magic Mouse software

By Nick Mead on 4 December, 2009

Magic MouseIf you've got yourself a spanking new Magic Mouse for your Mac, you may be more than just a little bit disappointed with some of its functionality.Fortunately, a mini-cottage industry of Magic Mouse software is already developing to fill the gap left by Apple. There still isn't much out there at the moment but here are a few essential software downloads to get the best out of your Magic Mouse. Note that all of these work for Trackpads too:

BetterTouchTool

This is completely free to use and amazingly simple. BetterTouchTool is the work of a single German developer who has produced an easy way to customize Mighty Mouse actions. These include the all important pinch in/out (zoom), single finger taps and even three finger swipes. Note that it only works with Snow Leopard.

BetterTouchTool

MouseWizard

A more polished Mighty Mouse enhancer software which adds three extra buttons, namely, 'pinch', 'bloat', and 'tap to click' gestures and allows you to customize almost every aspect of your Mighty Mouse. You can even put your Magic Mouse to sleep using it. The main interface is very easy to use, allowing you to configure which type of clicks do what such as configuring a middle-click for Exposé or a fourth click to open Spotlight etc. If you get stuck, a handy wizard takes you through the configuration process by telling you where to place your hands on the Magic Mouse. The disadvantage is that it's not free (although only costs a modest $2.50).

MouseWizard

MouseZoom

If it's just the speed of your Magic Mouse cursor that is annoying you, MouseZoom is a simple solution that speeds it up even if your Mac OS X native mouse speed slider is set at maximum. Simply use the slider to set the speed you want. Although this isn't designed specifically for the Magic Mouse, it does work with it.

MouseZoom

These are the main tools that should cover most of your Mighty Mouse needs. However, if you haven't updated it, you should download Wireless Mouse Software Update from Apple which allows you to use all of the Multi-Touch features in your Magic Mouse. The download also features lots of useful tutorial videos to help you get started.

MagicPrefs

MagicPrefs is a toolbar application which significantly improves the functionality and configuration options of Magic Mouse. These include such things as the MagicMenu which gives you a holistic display of your Magic Mouse features plus the the ability to configure the middle click, hold down both mouse buttons plus access Spaces, Expose and the Dashboard. You can even control the taps using MagicPrefs' Tap Sensitivity feature which allows you to use a slider to determine how hard you want to tap the Magic Mouse. One other very welcome feature for Magic Mouse users is MagicPrefs' ability to change Tracking Speed which the developer's claim adds an extra 25% to the speed of your mouse cursor.

 magicprefs2.png

Comments

  • Så ställer du in din Magic Mouse &raquo; Allt om Mac, iPod och iPhone &#8211; och vi älskar det! Så ställer du<br /> in din Magi

    [...] Via onsoftware.com [...]

    • Sent on 14 Dec 2009
  • Vlad Alexa Vlad Alexa

    tsk , tsk , you forgot MagicPrefs

    • Sent on 21 Dec 2009
  • Jamie Jamie

    Awesome review, I quite enjoy using BTT.

    • Sent on 25 Dec 2009
  • RB Design &#8211; My New Favorite Apple Thing &#8211; My Magic Mouse RB Design &#8<br />211; My New

    [...] Almost forgot – check out this software to make it even better – better touch tool Share and [...]

    • Sent on 06 Feb 2010
  • uberVU - social comments uberVU - soci<br />al comments

    Social comments and analytics for this post This post was mentioned on Twitter by mixedenblogs: The best Magic Mouse software http://bit.ly/5dKcyU

    • Sent on 07 Feb 2010
  • Damion Jonestown Damion Jonest<br />own

    WOW! Better Touch Tool really proves the potential of the Magic Mouse. I just removed my old app Magicprefs and replaced it with BTT. Within minutes I was finally happy with the Magic mouse. There are a few things that could be simplified, such as the menu selection of functions but all and all this is far superior to a few other similar apps I've tried. I would definitely recommend this to anyone that has a Magic mouse.

    • Sent on 21 Mar 2010
  • jason jason

    Magic prefs is not ready for prime time... I can't get it to do anything useful. Good idea.. needs work. Either it has bugs or the proper way to use the interface is very obscure.

    • Sent on 01 Jul 2010
  • leo leo

    BBT is the only one that lets you drag with taps and thus eliminating the need to click completely!!! It still doesn't work everywhere like axure pro, but works just about everywhere like magic. BBT is definitely the most powerful of the 3 available so far.

    • Sent on 29 Jul 2010
  • Nicholas Mead Nicholas Mead

    MagicPrefs fans will be pleased to hear that I've added it to the post. Thanks for pointing that out - shame on me for missing that one ;).

    • Sent on 10 Sep 2010
  • KarlD KarlD

    This is great! BBT is an awesome tool to extend gestures. Anyone know if BBT or some other tool will expose the raw touch data of the magic tracpad to get multiple touch events? It seems like BBT might be able to, I haven't determined yet. I want to build Flash experiences where I can use the Magic trackpad to get multitouch input (not more gestures). Something like this example, but not with a touch enabled display, with a trackpad: http://gotoandlearn.com/play.php?id=122 (skip to the end of the video) Anyone know of a tool that would allow this?

    • Sent on 12 Dec 2010
  • MohD Rafie MohD Rafie

    is there a similar program for windows 7 working with bootcamp 3.1 on MacBook Pro i need to turn off my scrol in my mac magic mouse it made me crazy Regards MohD

    • Sent on 02 Feb 2011
  • sudhakar sudhakar

    Bull shit

    dfsghj

    • Sent on 30 Mar 2011
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