If you've just moved from a Windows laptop to a MacBook, right-clicking is the first thing that feels broken. There's no second button, the trackpad is one solid slab of glass, and the key you reach for out of habit does something different. Here's how to right click on Mac every way Apple supports, plus the handful of settings that decide whether it works at all.
Most guides stop at "hold Control and click". That's correct, but it skips why a two-finger tap does nothing on a new Mac, why your Magic Mouse ignores you, and why Ctrl-clicking a link in Chrome no longer opens a new tab. Those are the bits that actually trip people up, so that's where I've spent the words.
The quick answer: how to right click on Mac
- Trackpad: press down with two fingers at once.
- Any mouse or trackpad: hold Control and click.
- Magic Mouse: click the right-hand side, once Secondary click is switched on.
- Two-button mouse: the right button just works, no setup.
- Keyboard only: the Contextual Menu key if your keyboard has one, or Mouse Keys if it doesn't.
Apple calls it a "secondary click" in System Settings, and the menu that appears a shortcut menu. It's the same thing as a Windows right-click with a different name, which matters when you go hunting for the setting.
Right click on a MacBook trackpad
Two-finger click is the default
Out of the box, a MacBook trackpad treats a press with two fingers as a right-click. Rest two fingertips side by side on the trackpad and press down until you feel the click. Both fingers need to land at roughly the same moment, otherwise macOS can read it as an ordinary click.
The setting lives in System Settings > Trackpad > Point & Click > Secondary click. If right-click has stopped working on a second-hand Mac, check here first, because the previous owner may have set it to Off.
Why two-finger tap doesn't work yet
Plenty of guides, including the one ranking first for this search as I write, say two-finger tapping is on by default. On a fresh Mac it isn't, because a tap only counts as a click once Tap to click is turned on, and that ships switched off.
Turn on Tap to click in the same Point & Click tab and the Secondary click option changes its wording to include tapping. From then on a light two-finger tap opens the menu without pressing the glass down. It's quieter, faster, and far easier on a trackpad balanced on your knees.
Corner click, and the left-handed option
If two fingers feel awkward, set Secondary click to Click in Bottom-Right Corner. That turns the corner into a virtual right button, the closest thing to the split trackpad on a Windows laptop.
There's also Click in Bottom-Left Corner, and none of the ranking guides I read say what it's for: left-handed use. If you drive the trackpad with your left hand, the left corner is where your thumb already sits.
Right click with a Magic Mouse
The Magic Mouse looks buttonless, but it can tell which side of the shell you press. Go to System Settings > Mouse > Point & Click and set Secondary click to Click on Right Side, or Left Side if you're left-handed. If the right side does nothing, this setting is almost always why, and it's easy to find switched off on a mouse paired to a new or freshly wiped Mac.
The other Magic Mouse gotcha is your index finger. The mouse only registers a right-click when nothing is touching the left half, so if your index finger rests on the left while your middle finger presses the right, you get a normal click. Lift the left finger and it behaves.
Any ordinary two-button USB or Bluetooth mouse skips all of this. Plug it in and the right button does what you'd expect.
Control-click, and why Ctrl isn't Ctrl on a Mac
Holding Control while you click works on every Mac, with any trackpad or mouse, no settings needed. It's the method Apple leads with in its own Right-click on Mac guide. The catch for Windows switchers is that Control on a Mac doesn't do the jobs Ctrl does on a PC.
Find the right key first
On a MacBook and on Apple's Magic Keyboards, the bottom-left key is fn with a globe icon, not Control. Control sits one key to the right. Muscle memory sends your little finger to the corner, you press globe-and-click, nothing happens, and it looks as if right-click is broken.
The UK layout has its own surprises elsewhere on the board, like the hashtag on Mac trading places with the pound sign, but the bottom row is the same on UK and US keyboards.
What Ctrl-click used to do on Windows
On Windows, Ctrl-click on a link opens it in a new tab, and Ctrl-click in File Explorer adds a file to your selection. On a Mac, both of those jobs belong to Command. Control-click a link in Safari or Chrome and you get the right-click menu instead of a new tab, while Command-click opens it in the background.
Finder works the same way. Command-click picks out several separate files, Shift-click selects a run of them, and Control-click opens the menu for whatever is under the pointer. Once you map Windows Ctrl to Mac Command, the same swap makes copy and paste on Mac click into place as well.
How to right click on Mac with only the keyboard
The Contextual Menu key
This is the one most guides miss. Apple's current guide says the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and Numeric Keypad (USB-C) has a Contextual Menu key, below F13, which opens the shortcut menu for the selected item. Apart from Apple's own page, nothing ranking on page one for this search mentions it. If your keyboard has that key, select a file and press it, no click involved.
Mouse Keys
If your trackpad has died or you can't use one, Mouse Keys lets the keyboard drive the pointer. Turn it on in System Settings > Accessibility > Pointer Control, or press Option-Command-F5 to bring up the Accessibility Shortcuts panel and tick it there. With Mouse Keys on, the I key, or 5 on a numeric keypad, acts as a click.
To right-click, hold Control while you press I, and some MacBooks want Fn held as well. It's slow, but it's enough to reach System Settings on a Mac whose trackpad has stopped responding and fix things properly.
VoiceOver
If you use VoiceOver, the shortcut menu is VO-Shift-M, where VO is Control-Option. It opens the menu for whatever VoiceOver is focused on.
Right-click menus worth knowing
Once right-click is working, a few menus repay the effort:
- Dock icons: right-click an app in the Dock, then hold Option, and Quit becomes Force Quit. It's one of the quicker routes in my guide to force quit on Mac.
- Copy as Pathname: right-click a file in Finder and hold Option, and the Copy item becomes Copy as Pathname, which puts the full file path on your clipboard.
- Open With: right-click any file to open it in an app other than the default, without changing the default for good.
- Desktop: right-click empty desktop space for Use Stacks, which tidies a messy desktop in one go.
Force Click is not right-click
New MacBook owners often mix the two up. Force Click is a firmer press with one finger that brings up Look Up, link previews and similar. It needs Force Click and haptic feedback turned on in Trackpad settings, and it never opens the right-click menu. If you're pressing hard with one finger and getting dictionary definitions, you want two fingers instead.
FAQ
Why is right click not working on my Mac?
Check System Settings > Trackpad, or Mouse, > Point & Click and make sure Secondary click isn't set to Off. If you're tapping rather than pressing, turn on Tap to click too. Control-click works regardless of those settings, so use it to confirm the Mac itself is fine.
How do I right click on a MacBook Air?
The same way as on any MacBook: press the trackpad with two fingers, or hold Control and click. Every MacBook Air and MacBook Pro trackpad supports both.
Can I right click on Mac without a mouse?
Yes. The trackpad handles it with two fingers or a corner click, and if the trackpad isn't working, Mouse Keys or the Contextual Menu key on supported keyboards will open the menu from the keyboard alone.
My take
Turn on Tap to click and leave Secondary click on two fingers. It's the quickest right-click on any laptop, Windows machines included, and it takes ten seconds in Settings. If you've come from a PC, the bigger fix is in your head rather than in Settings: Windows Ctrl is Mac Command, and Mac Control mostly means "open the menu".
Source: Right-click on Mac, Apple Support
The Lovelock Log
Monthly notes on the tech I actually use, the tools I am building, and what is working. No spam.