Overview of VoiceOver gestures on Mac
If you have a Mac with a trackpad, the Trackpad Commander feature of VoiceOver will be available in the VoiceOver Utility. When turned on, you can use VoiceOver gestures to navigate and interact with screen elements.
VoiceOver gestures involve using one or more fingers to drag, tap, flick, or rotate on the trackpad. You can use different techniques for a gesture. For example, you can tap using two fingers on one hand, or one finger on each hand.
Note: You can use keyboard help by pressing VO + K with VoiceOver on to practice standard and customized gestures and learn what they do.
VoiceOver speaks the items in the VoiceOver cursor as you move the cursor, and plays a sound effect whenever it encounters a blank space on the screen. This information helps you gain a sense of the actual location of items on the screen as you navigate.
To enhance collaboration with sighted users, VoiceOver makes the area of the screen you’re working in more visible by dimming the rest of the screen. Other collaboration features, such as the caption or braille panels, can be used at the same time as VoiceOver gestures.
You can make gestures such as touch's, swipes, and taps using one or more fingers on the trackpad. If you have experience using VoiceOver on an iOS device you are familiar with many of these gestures.
When combined with important keyboard commands, the Trackpad Commander can offer a valuable way to use your computer with the VoiceOver screen reader.
VoiceOver includes standard gestures for navigating and interacting with items on the screen; you can't change these gestures.
For example, if you don't know your location on the screen, Tap Three Times with One Finger. VoiceOver tells you what's in the VoiceOver cursor.
When you use VoiceOver gestures, you can't use the mouse button on the internal trackpad unless the mouse button is used with a modifier key, as in Control-click.
To turn on the Trackpad Commander, hold down the VoiceOver modifier (the CTL + OPT keys or the Caps Lock key depending on how it has been set up) and Rotate Two Fingers Clockwise anywhere on the trackpad. To turn it off, hold down the VoiceOver modifier again and Rotate Two Fingers Counterclockwise.
There are different techniques for making gestures, for example when you perform the Rotor gesture, you can rotate using two fingers on one hand or with one finger from each hand, one finger swiping up as the other finger swipes down.
The Rotor gesture is very important because it lets you navigate text areas, windows, dialog boxes, webpages, and adjust controls such as sliders, steppers, and splitters. It is very helpful.
Open Keyboard Help to give you a place to practice making gestures and keyboard commands. Turn on Keyboard Help by pressing VO + K and practice making the gestures you find below, press the Escape key to leave the practice area.
VoiceOver Gestures on Mac
General
| VoiceOver Action | Gesture |
|---|---|
| Turn on the Trackpad Commander and VoiceOver gestures | VO-two-finger rotate clockwise |
| Turn off the Trackpad Commander and VoiceOver gestures | VO-two-finger rotate counterclockwise |
| Turn the screen curtain on or off | Three-finger triple-tap |
| Mute or unmute VoiceOver | Three-finger double-tap |
Navigation
| VoiceOver Action | Gesture |
|---|---|
| Force the VoiceOver cursor into a horizontal or vertical line when you drag a finger across the trackpad | Hold down the Shift key and drag a finger horizontally or vertically |
| Move the VoiceOver cursor to the next item | Flick right |
| Move the VoiceOver cursor to the previous item | Flick left |
| Move content or the scroll bar (depending on the Trackpad Commander setting) | Three-finger flick in any direction |
| Go to the Dock | Two-finger double-tap near the bottom of the trackpad |
| Go to the menu bar | Two-finger double-tap near the top of the trackpad |
| Open the Application Chooser | Two-finger double-tap on the left side of the trackpad |
| Open the Window Chooser to access open windows and system dialog boxes | Two-finger double-tap on the right side of the trackpad |
| Jump to another area of the current app | Press Control while touching a finger on the trackpad |
Interaction
| VoiceOver Action | Gesture |
|---|---|
| Speak the item in the VoiceOver cursor or, if there isn't an item, play a sound effect to indicate a blank area | Touch (includes a tap or drag) |
| Select an item | Double-tap anywhere. You can also split-tap (touch one finger, then tap with a second finger). |
| Start interacting with the item in the VoiceOver cursor | Two-finger flick right |
| Stop interacting with the item in the VoiceOver cursor | Two-finger flick left |
| Scroll one page down or up | Three-finger flick up or down |
| Escape (close a menu without making a selection) | Two-finger scrub back and forth |
| Increase or decrease the value of a slider, splitter, stepper, or other control | Flick up (increase) or flick down (decrease) |
Text
| VoiceOver Action | Gesture |
|---|---|
| Read the current page, starting at the top | Two-finger flick up |
| Read from the VoiceOver cursor to the end of the current page | Two-finger flick down |
| Read the current scroll page | Three-finger tap |
| Pause or resume speaking | Two-finger tap |
| Describe what's in the VoiceOver cursor | Triple-tap |
| Change the granularity with which VoiceOver reads text (by word, line, sentence, or paragraph) | Press Command while dragging your finger around on the trackpad in a text field or while interacting with a text element, until VoiceOver reads with the expected granularity |
Rotor
| VoiceOver Action | Gesture |
|---|---|
| Change the rotor settings | Two-finger rotate |
| Move to the previous item based on the rotor setting | Flick up |
| Move to the next item based on the rotor setting | Flick down |