Do you feel stuck without a mouse while using your laptop? Well, now is the perfect time to take advantage of the advanced touchpad features in Windows 11.

Beyond basic gestures, your touchpad offers advanced functions, including customizable options.

5 One-finger touchpad gestures

The basic touchpad gestures

If you've used a laptop for even a short time, you should be familiar with these basic touchpad gestures. If you left-tap the touchpad, it will left-click; if you right-tap the touchpad, it will right-click.

Moving your finger across the touchpad will move the cursor on your screen. If you click and drag, it will box-select multiple files or text. If you click and drag on a file or folder, you will move it, and double tapping on a file or application will open it, of course.

4 Two-finger touchpad gestures

Useful touchpad gestures

Let’s move on to some more complex gestures, specifically those using two fingers. You might already know some of these gestures, but others might be new to you. For example, if you tap the touchpad with both fingers, it will right-click; or if you move both fingers up or down, it will scroll up and down the page. If you pinch your fingers together or apart, it will zoom in and zoom out. Swiping your fingers from left to right will take you to the previous page.

3 Three-finger touchpad gestures

This is where it gets interesting

Three-finger touchpad gestures encompass more advanced controls for your laptop. Using three fingers on the touchpad, you can tap to open the Search menu. If you swipe up, it will open the Task View, and if you swipe down, it will close all windows and take you back to the desktop.

If you use three fingers and swipe left to right, you’ll be able to cycle through programs, similar to the Alt + Tab shortcut. All of the three finger gestures can be changed and customized in the Settings menu.

2 Four-finger touchpad gestures

Touchpad gestures for desktop navigation

Four-finger gestures work in a very similar way to the three-finger gestures, with only a few differences. If you tap with four fingers, it will open the Notification Center. Swiping up or down will open the Task View and minimize your windows the same as the three-finger gestures.

Swiping left or right will let you switch between your active desktops (if you are using any). If the three-finger and four-finger gestures are not to your liking, then the next section will show you how to customize them to better suit how you work.

1 Customized touchpad gestures

If the default gestures aren't good enough

If you aren't happy with the defaults, you can customize the three and four finger gestures to your liking. You will have a few options you can change each gesture to, but if you don't like any of them, you can add a custom gesture instead. Both the three and four finger gestures share the same custom features.

However, the tap gesture has its own set of options, and the various swipe gestures have a different set of options. The tap gesture is the only one you can set a custom gesture on. Below you can find your available options.

Make every gesture useful

The option to customize your gestures gives users multiple ways to use their laptop touchpad. This means if you don't use the default options, you can change them to employ the features that you use more often. If you're looking to work even faster on your PC or laptop, then you should definitely learn about these 50+ keyboard shortcuts every pro should know.