Bring Back Snow Leopard Like Three-Finger Navigational Swipe [OS X Tips]

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Mac OS X Lion brought about changes to some of the gestures in Mac OS X. If you prefer the way the gestures worked in Mac OS X Snow Leopard you can bring some of them back. The trick to go back in time is just one key away.

That one key is the Option key and you can use it while performing gestures to make some of them act like they did in Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

Previously the three-finger swipe gesture on the trackpad would allow you to navigate in Safari and Finder when your Mac was running Snow Leopard. However, when Apple introduced Lion the default behavior of the three-finger swipe gesture  was changed to allow you to switch between spaces.

If you want to temporarily use this gesture like you did before simply press and hold the Option key while you complete the gesture. If you are looking for something a bit more permanent than change the settings in the trackpad settings in the System Preferences app.

I’m happy with the default gestures, but I like the fact that when I need to I can get a bit more variety out of the available gestures when using the Option key in tandem with the gesture.

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