How to right click on a laptop

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If you’re asking, “how do I right-click on a laptop,” the answer to that question will largely depend on your specific laptop. Right-clicking creates more options than the conventional left-click, but knowing how to right-click on a computer may not be straightforward at times, especially for laptops with no physical clickable buttons below the trackpad.

Mac laptops for example, don’t have a right-click button on the trackpad. However, figuring out how to right-click on a laptop is easy, and you can even do it on any keyboard.

Right-click on a laptop

Laptops with two clickable buttons below the trackpad are the simplest laptops to do a right-click. There are two buttons, one button on the left for left-clicking and the right button for right-clicking.

Many laptops don’t have physical clickable buttons but come with a clickable pad located at the bottom and divided by a verticle line. Click to the right of the dividing line to right-click and to the left of it to left-click. Few laptops have similar pad designs with no dividing line, but very much work the same way.

Right-click on a Mac laptop

Mac laptops are entirely different from windows laptops. If you just switched from a Windows laptop to a MacBook for the first time, figuring out how to right-click may not be easy at the beginning. There is no right-click button on the trackpad of a Mac laptop, but there are other ways to do it. The more traditional way is to navigate to “System Preferences” and click “Trackpad.” Next, go to the “Point & Click” tab and then “Secondary click” to change the click setting to your preferred option. If you don’t want to go through all that, the simplest way is to press and hold the “Control” key while clicking the trackpad. You can also use two fingers to click rather than one to right-click.

Right-click keyboard shortcut

You can use a keyboard shortcut if you don’t want to use a trackpad to right-click. Position your cursor, hold down the “Shift” key, and press “F10” to right-click. On some laptops, you can also right-click using a specific key known as the “Menu” key, usually the symbol of a cursor clicking a menu.

Right-click on a touch-screen laptop

It’s relatively easy to right-click on a touch-screen laptop. Position your finger on the part of the screen you want to right-click and hold it there for some seconds; release your finger after a couple of seconds to right-click.

Right-click with a mouse

Another right-clicking option is to use a mouse. But most people prefer to use keyboard shortcuts, which are essential for professional workflows and tend to be faster and more efficient than using a mouse.