Test your touchpad step by step
- Click with one finger, then tap once. Both count in the Left row. The click areas on the diagram light up green once they’ve worked.
- Right-click: tap with two fingers. On Windows, also press the lower-right corner. Each should count in the Right row.
- Scroll with two fingers up, down, left and right. The arrows in the middle of the diagram light up, and the Scrolling panel counts each direction.
- Move one finger in quick circles for a few seconds to see how often the touchpad reports.
A touchpad scrolls by sending the browser imitation wheel events, so this page doesn’t check for the wrong-direction glitches of a worn mouse wheel. It counts every direction instead, and a direction that never counts is the fault to look for.
When a tap, click or scroll doesn’t register
Most touchpad trouble is a setting, not a broken pad. Check these before anything else:
- Windows 11: Settings, Bluetooth & devices, Touchpad. Under Taps you’ll find Tap with a single finger to single-click, Tap with two fingers to right-click and Press the lower right corner of the touchpad to right-click; under Scroll & zoom, Drag two fingers to scroll. Microsoft notes that some gestures only work on precision touchpads.
- Mac: System Settings, Trackpad. Tap to click, Secondary click and Natural scrolling live there.
If the pointer moves but a physical click never counts, and the settings are right, the click mechanism is the likely fault. A click that counts twice, flagged by the double-click detector, points the same way.
Reading the direction
If up and down look swapped, the scroll direction setting is the reason: Natural scrolling on a Mac, or the scroll direction option in the Windows touchpad settings. That’s a preference, not a fault. The full mouse tester is set up for a regular mouse, the Magic Mouse page covers Apple’s touch-surface mouse, and the laptop layout of the keyboard tester checks the keyboard above your touchpad.
Every touchpad control and where it shows up
| Control | In the tester above |
|---|---|
| Click, or tap with one finger | Left row |
| Tap or click with two fingers | Right row |
| Press the lower-right corner (Windows) | Right row, while that setting is on |
| Three-finger tap (Windows) | Middle row, if it’s set to middle click |
| Slide two fingers | Scrolling panel: Up, Down and Left / right |
| Move one finger | Polling rate panel |
| Three- and four-finger swipes, pinch | Nothing: the operating system handles them |