Follow Touchégg on...

Touchégg

Touchégg is an app that runs in the background and transform the gestures you make on your touchpad or touchscreen into visible actions in your desktop.

For example, you can swipe up with 3 fingers to maximize a window or swipe left with 4 finger to switch to the next desktop.

Many more actions and gestures are available and everything is easily configurable.

:movie_camera: Ubuntu demo

:movie_camera: elementary OS demo

:movie_camera: Touchscreen demo

Table of contents

• Installation
  • Ubuntu, Debian and derivatives
  • Fedora, CentOS, RHEL and derivatives
  • Arch Linux, Manjaro and derivatives
  • openSUSE
  • Alpine Linux
  • Void Linux
  • NixOS
  • GNOME
• Configuration
  • Using Touché
  • Manual configuration
  • Global settings
  • Available gestures
  • Swipe
  • Pinch
  • Tap
  • Available actions
  • Maximize or restore a window
  • Minimize a window
  • Tile/snap a window
  • Fullscreen a window
  • Close a window
  • Switch desktops/workspaces
  • Show desktop
  • Keyboard shortcut
  • Execute a command
  • Mouse click
  • Custom animations
  • Daemon configuration
• FAQ
• Copyright

Installation

On the releases page you will find a package for your distribution.

Otherwise you can compile the source code yourself by following the instructions available in the HACKING.md file.

Ubuntu, Debian and derivatives

On Ubuntu, it is recommended to use the official PPA to install Touchégg and receive updates:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:touchegg/stable
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install touchegg

Running add-apt-repository may fail because of temporary server issues; try again a few times, it should work. The PPA is signed with key 7EA12677D47B593CE22727D4C0FCE32AF6B96252 in case you want to install it manually.

If PPAs are not available on your operating system, download the .deb package and install it. Double click on the package may work, otherwise install it from the terminal:

$ cd ~/Downloads # Or to the path where the deb package is placed at
$ sudo apt-get install ./touchegg_*.deb # Install the package

Run Touchégg manually by running the command touchegg or reboot to get started.

Included by default on elementary OS 6, Zorin OS 16, Pop!_OS 21.04+ and Linux Mint 21.2

Fedora, CentOS, RHEL and derivatives

On Fedora, Touchegg is available in the official repository:

$ dnf install touchegg
# You may also need to manually start the service
$ sudo systemctl start touchegg
$ sudo systemctl enable touchegg

On CentOS (EPEL) it is recommended to use the official COPR to install Touchégg and receive updates.

$ sudo dnf copr enable joseexposito/touchegg
$ sudo dnf install touchegg

On other RPM based operating systems, download the .rpm package and install it. Double click on the package may work, otherwise install it from the terminal:

$ cd ~/Downloads # Or to the path where the rpm package is placed at
$ sudo dnf install touchegg-*.rpm # Install the package

Run Touchégg manually by running the command touchegg or reboot to get started.

Arch Linux, Manjaro and derivatives

Install the touchegg package from Arch Linux Packages Registry.

Notice that on Arch services are not enabled or started by default, so you'll have to do it manually:

$ sudo systemctl enable touchegg.service
$ sudo systemctl start touchegg

Once the service is enabled, run Touchégg manually by running the command touchegg or reboot to get started.

A version for Arch based distributions without systemd support, like Artix, is also available on AUR

openSUSE

Touchégg is available in the official repositories.

$ sudo zypper install touchegg
$ sudo systemctl enable touchegg.service
$ sudo systemctl start touchegg

If the version of Touchégg included for your distro is too old (v1.x) it is recommended to use the official COPR to install Touchégg and receive updates.

Alpine Linux

Uncomment the url for the testing repository in /etc/apk/repositories, then install:

$ sudo apk update
$ sudo apk add touchegg

The Touchégg package includes an Openrc init script for starting the Touchégg daemon at boot. To enable:

$ sudo rc-update add touchegg

The init script can also be used to manually start and stop the Touchégg daemon as required:

$ sudo rc-service touchegg start
$ sudo rc-service touchegg stop

Void Linux

Touchégg is available from the main repository. To use it, you have to enable its service after installing.

$ sudo xbps-install touchegg
$ sudo ln -s /etc/sv/touchegg /var/service

NixOS

Add the touchegg package in your configuration.nix file and enable the services.

# configuration.nix
...
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
  touchegg
];

services.touchegg.enable = true;
...

GNOME

If you are using the GNOME Desktop Environment it is recommended to also install this extension:

https://github.com/JoseExposito/gnome-shell-extension-x11gestures

Both Touchégg and the extension need to installed, so don't forget to follow the install instructions for your distro!

Configuration

After installing Touchégg you'll notice that you can start using multi-touch gestures. However, you are not forced to use the gestures and actions that come out of the box, you can configure the gestures you'd like to use and the actions they'll trigger.

Using Touché

Touché is a desktop application to easily configure your touchpad and touchscreen multi-touch gestures.

Follow the instructions on the project page to install it.

Manual configuration

Touché is the recommended way of configuring your gestures. However, you can also manually configure Touchégg by editing an XML file.

Start by copying the default configuration from /usr/share/touchegg/touchegg.conf to ~/.config/touchegg/touchegg.conf. You can do it using your file manager or by running this command in your terminal:

$ mkdir -p ~/.config/touchegg && cp -n /usr/share/touchegg/touchegg.conf ~/.config/touchegg/touchegg.conf

Now open ~/.config/touchegg/touchegg.conf with your favorite text editor. It is a XML document with 3 main sections:

• Global settings
• Global gestures: <application name="All">...</application>

• Application specific gestures: <application name="Google-chrome,Firefox"></application>

  The application name can be obtained by running this command and clicking on the target application window: bash $ xprop | grep WM_CLASS

Find more information in the sections below.

Global settings

Option	Value	Default	Description	Example
animation_delay	Number	150	Delay, in milliseconds, since the gesture starts before the animation is displayed	Use the MAXIMIZE_RESTORE_WINDOW action. You will notice that no animation is displayed if you complete the action quick enough. This property configures that time
action_execute_threshold	Number	20	Percentage of the gesture to be completed to apply the action. Set to 0 to execute actions unconditionally	Use the MAXIMIZE_RESTORE_WINDOW action. You will notice that, even if the animation is displayed, the action is not executed if you did not move your fingers far enough. This property configures the percentage of the gesture that must be reached to execute the action
color	Hex color	3E9FED	Color of the animation	#909090
borderColor	Hex color	3E9FED	Color of the animation	FFFFFF

Available gestures

Swipe

From libinput documentation: Swipe gestures are executed when three or more fingers are moved synchronously in the same direction.

Note that three is the minimum number of fingers that Touchégg allows for swipe gestures on touchpads and two on touchscreens.

Example:

<gesture type="SWIPE" fingers="3" direction="UP">
  <action type="MAXIMIZE_RESTORE_WINDOW">
    <animate>true</animate>
  </action>
</gesture>

Pinch

From libinput documentation: Pinch gestures are executed when two or more fingers are located on the touchpad and are either changing the relative distance to each other (pinching) or are changing the relative angle (rotate).

Example:

<gesture type="PINCH" fingers="4" direction="IN">
  <action type="CLOSE_WINDOW">
    <animate>true</animate>
    <color>F84A53</color>
    <borderColor>F84A53</borderColor>
  </action>
</gesture>

Tap

Tap gestures are executed when two or more fingers "click" on the touchscreen.

Only available on touchscreens

Example:

<gesture type="TAP" fingers="2">
  <action type="MOUSE_CLICK">
    <button>3</button>
    <on>begin</on>
  </action>
</gesture>

Available actions

Maximize or restore a window (MAXIMIZE_RESTORE_WINDOW)

Maximize the window under the pointer. If it is already maximized, restore it.

Options:

Option	Value	Description
animate	true/false	Set it to true to display the animation. false otherwise.
color	Hex color	Color of the animation. For example: 909090
borderColor	Hex color	Border color of the animation. For example: #FFFFFF

Example:

<gesture type="SWIPE" fingers="3" direction="UP">
  <action type="MAXIMIZE_RESTORE_WINDOW">
    <animate>true</animate>
    <color>3E9FED</color>
    <borderColor>3E9FED</borderColor>
  </action>
</gesture>

Minimize a window (MINIMIZE_WINDOW)

Minimize the window under the pointer.

Options:

Option	Value	Description
animate	true/false	Set it to true to display the animation. false otherwise.
color	Hex color	Color of the animation. For example: 909090
borderColor	Hex color	Border color of the animation. For example: #FFFFFF

Example:

<gesture type="SWIPE" fingers="3" direction="DOWN">
  <action type="MINIMIZE_WINDOW">
    <animate>true</animate>
    <color>3E9FED</color>
    <borderColor>3E9FED</borderColor>
  </action>
</gesture>

Tile/snap a window (TILE_WINDOW)

Resize and move the window under the pointer to use half of the screen.

Options:

Option	Value	Description
direction	left/right	Use the left or right half of the screen
animate	true/false	Set it to true to display the animation. false otherwise.
color	Hex color	Color of the animation. For example: 909090
borderColor	Hex color	Border color of the animation. For example: #FFFFFF

Example:

<gesture type="SWIPE" fingers="3" direction="LEFT">
  <action type="TILE_WINDOW">
    <direction>left</direction>
    <animate>true</animate>
    <color>3E9FED</color>
    <borderColor>3E9FED</borderColor>
  </action>
</gesture>

<gesture type="SWIPE" fingers="3" direction="RIGHT">
  <action type="TILE_WINDOW">
    <direction>right</direction>
    <animate>true</animate>
    <color>3E9FED</color>
    <borderColor>3E9FED</borderColor>
  </action>
</gesture>

Fullscreen a window (FULLSCREEN_WINDOW)

Toggles fullscreen mode for the window under the pointer.

Options:

Option	Value	Description
animate	true/false	Set it to true to display the an