How to Right Click on a Chromebook (Plus Essential Touchpad Gestures)
Updated on by Jim Mendenhall
Chromebook touchpads look a little different from what you might be used to on a Windows or Mac laptop. There are no separate left and right buttons, just a single smooth surface. That design choice trips up a lot of people who sit down at a Chromebook for the first time and need to open a context menu. The good news is that right-clicking on a Chromebook is simple once you know the handful of methods available, and ChromeOS actually supports a full set of touchpad gestures that make navigating your Chromebook faster and more intuitive.
Three Ways to Right Click
The quickest way to right click on a Chromebook is to tap the touchpad with two fingers at the same time. Just place two fingertips on the touchpad and tap lightly. ChromeOS interprets that two-finger tap as a right click and opens the context menu wherever your cursor happens to be. If you have used a MacBook or a modern Windows trackpad, this gesture will feel familiar immediately.
If the two-finger tap does not feel natural to you, there is another option. Hold down the Alt key on your keyboard and then tap or click the touchpad with a single finger. ChromeOS treats that combination as a right click as well. This method works well if you prefer to keep one hand on the keyboard while navigating, and it is especially handy on older Chromebooks where the touchpad might not register multi-finger taps as reliably.
Of course, you can always skip the touchpad entirely and plug in a traditional mouse. Most USB mice work with Chromebooks right out of the box, and Bluetooth mice pair through the ChromeOS settings without any fuss. Once connected, the right mouse button works exactly the way you would expect it to on any other computer.
Watch the video tutorial below for examples of each right click method.
Keyboard Shortcuts for Context Menus
There are also keyboard-only ways to open a context menu without touching the touchpad at all. If you have enabled “Treat top-row keys as function keys” in your keyboard settings, or if you are using an external keyboard with function keys, pressing Shift+F10 opens the context menu for whatever element is currently selected. This shortcut is particularly useful for accessibility or when you are working through a document and want to right click without moving your hands away from the keys.
Right Clicking on a Touchscreen Chromebook
If you have a convertible or tablet-style Chromebook with a touchscreen, right-clicking works a bit differently in tablet mode. Instead of tapping with two fingers on a touchpad, you simply long-press on the screen. Place your finger on the item you want to interact with and hold it there for about a second. ChromeOS will pop up the context menu right under your finger. This long-press gesture is the same one you would use on an Android phone or tablet, so it should feel natural if you are used to those devices.
Essential Touchpad Gestures
Right-clicking is just one of several touchpad gestures built into ChromeOS. Once you get comfortable with them, they make everyday browsing and multitasking noticeably faster.
Two-finger scrolling is probably the gesture you will use most often. Place two fingers on the touchpad and slide them up or down to scroll through web pages, documents, and menus. You can also slide two fingers left or right to scroll horizontally when a page supports it. If the scroll direction feels backwards to you, there is a setting to reverse it, which is covered in the customization section below.
Three-finger gestures open up quick multitasking. Swiping three fingers left or right on the touchpad switches between open browser tabs, which saves you from clicking on tiny tab headers. A three-finger tap on a link opens it in a new background tab, the same as a middle-click on a traditional mouse. And swiping three fingers upward on the touchpad opens the Overview screen, where you can see all your open windows at a glance and switch between them. This is the same view you get by pressing the dedicated Overview key on the top row of your Chromebook keyboard.
Setting Up an External Mouse
Plugging in a USB mouse is as straightforward as it gets. Connect the mouse or its wireless USB receiver to one of the USB ports and ChromeOS will recognize it within a few seconds. For Bluetooth mice, open Settings, navigate to the Bluetooth section, put your mouse into pairing mode, and select it from the list of available devices. Once paired, a Bluetooth mouse reconnects automatically whenever it is turned on and within range.
After connecting a mouse, you can fine-tune its behavior under Settings > Device > Mouse. ChromeOS lets you adjust the pointer speed, swap the primary and secondary buttons for left-handed use, and control the scroll direction independently from the touchpad. If you find yourself switching between a mouse and the built-in touchpad throughout the day, it is worth setting both up to your liking so neither one feels awkward. If you prefer using a mouse full-time, you might also want to disable your Chromebook’s touchpad to avoid accidental cursor jumps while typing.
Customizing Touchpad Settings
ChromeOS gives you a handful of options for tuning the touchpad to match the way you work. Open Settings and go to Device > Touchpad to find them. The tap-to-click toggle controls whether a light tap registers as a click or whether you need to physically press down on the touchpad. Most people leave tap-to-click enabled, but if you find yourself accidentally clicking while typing, turning it off can help.
You can also adjust the touchpad speed, which controls how far the cursor moves relative to your finger movement. A faster setting means less finger travel to get across the screen, while a slower setting gives you finer control for precision tasks. The reverse scrolling option, sometimes called Australian scrolling or natural scrolling, flips the scroll direction so that swiping two fingers downward moves the page down instead of up. Try both directions and stick with whichever one feels more intuitive to you.
